KentVillan

They have an EU banking licence, protecting up to 100k EUR… but the issue is it’s with the Bank of Lithuania. The UK banking licence is probably going through this year, but yes for the time being no FSCS protection. I invested in Revolut a few years back so have been following closely. Personally I never use it for more than a few hundred quid, and I do have my doubts about it. Seems strange that they’ve struggled to convince regulators for so long, and their culture seems pretty toxic. Having said that, a lot of the horror stories about fraud, locked accounts, etc happen with all banks. Issue with some of the neobanks is it can be much harder to speak to a human being and escalate your problem quickly. The branch thing is not such a big deal though IMO. There’s no real difference in what you can resolve over the phone. It’s more just being able to speak to someone competent who can listen to the specifics of your situation and not give a rote answer.

That was quick

@LondonLaxnot disputing either of those pieces, because not qualified to shoot back, but one thing I remember about the last financial crisis was the vast majority of financial journalism outside a handful of specialist publications (Bloomberg, FT, etc) was just wrong on basic points of fact, or was axe grinding about tangential issues. What I do know is the 2018 reforms had a decent amount of bipartisan support from Democrats in the House and Senate, so pinning this on Trump / Republicans seems a bit wide of the mark. Pinning it on greedy lobbying by mid sized banks maybe is more credible, and the general American love of deregulation. But there’s a piece by Dan Davies in the FT (paywalled unfortunately), who I think does know his stuff, and it seems there’s an element here of this problem being allowed to accumulate longer than it should have because SVB didn’t have the same requirements as a “systemically important” bank - and that this couldn’t happen in Europe because most European countries apply these regulations to any size of institution. Interested in what @CVByrnethinks anyway. It sounds to me like the deregulation is a contributing factor, rather than the actual cause? Which I guess was the point being made.

Kamara out, away from home, it wasn't far off expectations? A lot of people thought we'd fold completely with the Kamara injury

I don't think Emery is ever going to make all our players consistent. What matters is, does he have a game plan that brings the best out of the available players? Some of them will always be inconsistent, but the better he does, the more often they will perform.

The question surely is... yes, the specifics of this collapse were unique to SVB and perhaps a handful of similar banks, but the cause was a major change in the economic landscape that is affecting everything... so what is the next mini-crisis (or mega crisis) to emerge from rising interest rates?

My favourite burger is a home made lamb burger with tzatziki

I don't massively see the point in risking him this season. Give him a few run outs if he's had the all clear, but I don't think there's any rush to get him involved.

I think people have reset their expectations a bit, so "Average" for Emery means a lot better than "Average" for Sherwood. But I agree, I haven't yet seen us have a game under Emery where I didn't think he'd done a good job on a personal level. His plans haven't always worked (Liverpool game probably the worst example) but there's always a sensible logic to it, and the players always look well drilled. He's clearly the best manager we've had at this club in a very long time.

I just think Dougie is a player everyone else must love playing with. If the pass is on, he'll see it. He passes early and with good weight. You can drill the ball into him anywhere on the pitch. He doesn't overcomplicate things. And he respects his defensive duties. Yes maybe he doesn't have the athleticism to dominate a game, and he doesn't do quite enough in the final third, but he's one of those players you can just slot into any system and he'll probably do a decent job. And he keeps getting better. Really hope we hang on to him for a while.

There are lots of very one-footed players who have excelled at the highest level. Maradona rarely did anything with his right foot, Scholes rarely used his left. The issue with Bailey is his decision making. He's a head down player who gets himself in trouble, and he too often tries to dribble when the defender is set. Having said that, I still think Emery might see something in him. There is enough natural talent there to maybe get something out of him.

I like this guy a lot. Going forward he looks like a top half quality full back, comfortably. Defensively he looks very much lower half of the table, but he isn't the complete liability some paint him to be. Our defensive record with him in the side is ok, and he seems to follow instructions well, even if he isn't a natural defender. He also just seems a positive guy with a good attitude. That should carry him through. Be keen to see how he looks next season with a proper pre-season and more of a chance to settle in England.

Also agree with this, I like all kinds of pickles and gherkins

Agree tbf, a Kiwi burger is delish

It’s mainly a US problem if you look at who banks (banked) with SVB. And same point applies here, it’s not really a case of socialising SVB’s losses, it’s about protecting (relatively) innocent depositors. Bear in mind these were just cash deposits in current accounts, not high risk investments. The argument for hammering small business depositors to avoid moral hazard seems pretty shaky, and presenting this as socialising losses is a bit wide of the mark. It’s different from the 2008 bailouts where banks themselves were bailed out for high risk behaviour, when they should have known better.

I think someone showed that early in his career the laugh didn’t exist… don’t know if VT sleuths can dig out the evidence But yes, agree. Actually think the man has a lot of comic talent but he uses it for lowest common denominator jokes

Janet Yellen is saying US gov will support depositors but not the bank itself. And my understanding is they can do this without actually injecting any taxpayer money long term (it’s more about taking control of SVB assets and reshuffling).

The great irony with all of this is nobody seriously looking at fixing UK politics or the UK economy believes at the moment that the UK's problems have much to do with migrants arriving on boats. You can legitimately think that migrants arriving on small boats is a problem, but putting it front and centre of your politics, when there is so much else going wrong in the world at the moment, is blatant scapegoating, and as that caller shows, scapegoating is really the essence of what happened in 1930s Germany. Okay, the Nazis went in a particular direction which is unlikely to be repeated, but whether Braverman actually wants to take us towards something even fractionally approaching the Holocaust is irrelevant. The point is that scapegoating small groups of marginalised people for all of society's ills is very much the playbook of fascists and dictators everywhere. Anyway, sadly I think Braverman has triggered the culture war that she wanted, and hopefully we can move on to attacking the government for their woeful mismanagement of the country and the economy.

Think this deserves a thread. My understanding is that basically: Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is / was a commercial bank that was particularly integrated into the VC-funded Silicon Valley startup scene. Commercial banks make their money from receiving deposits, transaction fees, and earning interest on loans, mortgages, etc. Because SVB was very much the bank of the profit-free startup scene, it basically became a dumping ground for startups' VC funds - and these surged in 2021 with all the cheap money flying around during the Covid pandemic. Startups didn't really need much in the way of credit since they were so well funded. So in order to generate returns, in addition to lending money to business customers, SVB was investing them in long-term fixed-rate bonds / mortgage-backed securities. They didn't factor in the risk that interest rates would suddenly rise in 2022/23 and demolish the value of their investments. On top of that, funding has dried up for tech startups, so suddenly SVB's business customers have been withdrawing much more cash to cover payroll, costs, etc. So it's basically a double whammy of interest rates affecting their investments and affecting their customers. For the time being, received wisdom seems to be that the impact will be limited to the tech startup ecosystem, but one to keep an eye on? Won't be the last thing to go wrong as interest rates pull the plug on a lot of mad stuff. From what I remember of 2007/08, what starts out as something that seems quite niche and elite, suddenly becomes a widespread **** of pain for ordinary people. These masters of the universe suddenly become egalitarian food bank democrats when their gambles go wrong...

Anyway enjoyed that mini episode of MOTD… missed the commentary more than the punditry

Tbf as much as she is an utter word removed, I think she can be called whatever name she prefers to be called, and this whole thing of calling her Sue Ellen and calling Osborne Gideon, and Johnson Alexander is kind of lame

The big risk is that this episode of MOTD is going to be much better than usual

There are certain acts where you could swear someone inside the BBC is being paid to promote them. Wolf Alice for example.

My friend's sister's boyfriend (I know, convoluted) runs a burger shop where I live. You can order his burgers on Deliveroo, Uber Eats, etc. Anyway last year I had a few beers and went full bickster and offered him some advice. I said all your burgers are double patty, and you should do at least one option where it's just a normal burger at a lower price. He was very offended (understandably tbf, what do I know) and said he'd done his market research, and all the burger places in the area only did double patties. But I still think I'm right.

One of the things that makes me laugh about this debate is basically... racist Tories are "WELL I'VE NEVER GASSED A JEW.... HAHA OWNED" as if you have to exactly replicate the EXACT crimes of Nazi Germany to merit any kind of comparison with 1930s German politics.