The banking industry is receiving a great deal of attention in the wake of the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Some discoveries have been astonishing, as the institutions have clearly focused more on social policies than sensible fiscal business activities.
As I noted in a previous report, Signature Bank has become the 3rd biggest bank collapse in US history. It turns out that five months before this happened, the institution hosted a seminar for gender-neutral pronouns.
A video circulating on social media shows chairman Scott Shay of the bank – that was shut down by regulators at the weekend to avoid a US banking crisis – along with corporate consultant on gender issues Finn Brigham.The Pride Council event presented Brigham, who works as director of project management for the Manhattan-based nonprofit Callen-Lorde Community Health Center – an LGBTQ health clinic- as a ‘genderqueer trans masculine person.’The video which goes for more than an hour sees Brigham and Shay delivering a lecture about ‘pronouns’ with the ultra-woke company seizing the opportunity to laud their title as the ‘first bank in the United States to have an openly gay man on the board.’It was in reference to Barney Frank, former Massachusetts congressman, who co-sponsored legislation regulating banks following the 2008 financial crisis only to this week have his role on the Signature Bank board come under fire.The clip then shows Brigham run down a list of pronouns who says: ‘The most common pronouns folks are familiar with are ‘she’ and ‘he.’
As their assets were declining in value, Signature Bank was focused on creating music videos.
A deeper look at SVB has revealed that just one member of its board of directors had a career in investment banking, while the others were major Democratic donors.
Tom King, 63, was appointed to the board in September after previously serving as the CEO of investment banking at Barclay’s. He has had 35 years of experience in investment banking.But he is the only one on the board with a career in the financial industry, while others are a former Obama administration employee, a prolific contributor to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and even a Hillary Clinton mega-donor who prayed at a Shinto shrine when Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election.The board is now being investigated by federal authorities after it failed to prevent the bank from going under while it was investing clients’ money in risky low-interest government bonds and securities.It has previously been accused of being too focused on woke issues.When the bank fell on Friday, it touted that its board included ‘1 black,’ ‘1 LGBTQ+’ member and ‘2 veterans.’ It also noted that its board is 45 percent women.
The connection with leading Democratic politicians may explain the rapid “no-bailout bailout” that these banks have received. Three wineries owned by California Gov. Gavin Newsom are clients of Silicon Valley Bank, and the governor has long maintained personal accounts at the institution.
The news that Newsom has had personal accounts at the bank was revealed by a former staffer who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity. The three Newsom-owned wineries, CADE, Odette and Plumpjack, are listed as clients on the bank’s website.The report also said that a Silicon Valley Bank executive made a $100,000 donation to the California Partners Project — a charity founded by Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom — at the behest of the governor and that a bank executive sits on the charity’s board of directors.
It turns out that SVB, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse bet big on Democratic candidates over the past three election cycles, according to a New York Post review of fundraising data.
The banks — through their employees and affiliated PACs — donated nearly $1.2 million to Democrats between 2017 and 2022, according to the government transparency group OpenSecrets. Republican candidates got less than $750,000 over the same period.All three banks spent big to defeat President Donald Trump in 2020, collectively giving $198,926 to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.SVB, Signature Bank and Credit Suisse jointly gave just $17,597 to Trump in 2020 and $5,516 to his upstart run in 2016.
Now the “contagion” hasspread to Credit Suisse, which recently saw its stock drop to a record-low price level.
The bank reported Tuesday that “certain material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting” had been detected, leading management to describe those controls as “not effective” for 2021 and 2022.The original publication date for the 2022 annual report in which it made that disclosure had previously been pushed back from the prior week.The disclosure was made before the dip to the record low Tuesday, with shares for the bank subsequently being priced around $2.50 by the afternoon.
If you are seeking a reason the feds raced to the rescue this weekend, wonder no longer.
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