[lsllc]

Paraphrasing George Orwell (from Animal Farm):

  All Men are Created Equal, But Some are More Equal Than Others

From this article [0]:

... by the end of Orwell’s book, the Seven Commandments had disappeared from the wall, replaced by one lone Commandment:

  All Animals are Equal
  But Some Animals are More Equal Than Others

In Animal Farm, the animals who, in the end, defined themselves as “more equal than others” were the pigs — the same animals who had instigated and led the revolution.

[0] https://pagosadailypost.com/2021/08/18/ready-fire-aim-all-me...

[yieldcrv]

So its the former, its funny because it’s a reference at all?

I’m quite aware it is a reference from Animal Farm, I didn't see how it was related and was wondering if there was more, or if the joke was funny aside from “unexpected orwell”

Is there a special privilege conveyed to the 10 large accounts over every other depositor that had more than $250k on account?

[lsllc]

I think the implication is that anyone with an account so large it takes up the lions share of $13B probably has enough influence to make this sort of bailout happen:

  "Gee [senator|congressperson|etc], my donation to your re-election campaign was in that SVB account, would be a shame if I lost it".

[mrguyorama]

Or maybe american politicians have a long history of being buddy buddy with big money Capitalists, which most of SVB's clientele was, and had no qualms with throwing a few billions towards fixing a very local problem with the side benefit of helping their friends and another background benefit of reassuring whales to not pull out of other smaller banks.

Letting the whales die would have meant every other whale in every other bank would suddenly feel the need to inspect balance sheets or be whiny or just run. The entire reason SVB failed was poor management on their part, and poor risk hedging, but that's not a systemic problem. However, making every big cash holder suddenly worried they aren't as safe as they expected could be a mild systemic problem.

[vineyardmike]

> Is there a special privilege conveyed to the 10 large accounts over every other depositor that had more than $250k on account?

Yes the special privilege was a lot of money.

Everyone was not treated equally by being bade whole, even though they were treated equitably.

[yieldcrv]

> Everyone was not treated equally by being [m]ade whole

so they were treated equitably

in what way were they treated unequally?

[vineyardmike]

Equitable and equal are different. That’s not a value statement. They’re different.

equal treatment would be every account getting 1/n of the money used to save SVB. Equitable treatment is everyone being restored by the same % of their losses (in this case 100%). It’s different.

[yieldcrv]

Nobody was arguing that they weren't different, we were just waiting for you to explain the distinction you introduced, after not explaining the thing others introduced and were asking about

Since the goal was to save deposits 100% and there was enough money for that goal, and every account got 1/1 treatment, and nobody got 1/10th treatment, nobody got 1.5/1 treatment, and this applied to everyone over and under $250k not just those 10 accounts in the article, I’m still not seeing how those 10 accounts accounts “were more equal than others” which was the supposition introduced in the “joke” earlier

I don’t think semantics really helps point out that OP just had a poor joke that wasnt funny or accurate, I’m open to counterpoints though.

[oriettaxx]

I think it was not a poor joke, cause I think the reference perfectly fit the contest, anyhow my 'take is as a joke' was an invitation to take it less seriously, although it is a LOT of money (not coming from tax, I know, but anyhow collected to protect the general public and not a few), so it should also be taken more then seriously, as you did.

[lisasays]

Here's another paraphrase from the same book, adapted to the current situation:

    Nanny state bad.
    Nanny state with watered-down regulations, but which still bails out us when we screw up royally - better!