[xboxnolifes]

People keep saying this, but I don't understand why they don't see the issue. Yes, shareholders got zeroed out of their SVB shares. But since there was no risk to playing with depositors money besides losing the business, which can fail in any number of other ways as well, there is no deterrent to taking on the large risk.

The optimal strategy to beat the competition is to edge toward more risk. And since you can get an edge by playing more risky, other banks will have to do as well to compete.

A traditional business, when edging toward risk, fails when they cannot get their customers to buy from them. Banks fails when they can't get their customer's money back to them. That's the big issue with the risk dynamic.

[taeric]

This is probably less true than you think. If SVB's assets had been anything other than treasuries, I would agree. But liquidating their assets would almost certainly move all of those to a willing buyer. It is everything else that is problematic and likely nobody wants to buy.

[yibg]

What was stopping this behaving before or if there was no depositor guarantee? Either way there was no downsides to them.