Thought For The Day - 14 March 2023

Some of the crypto-creeps have taken the failure of SVB to bray that the American banking system is the cause, and unregulated crypto is the cure. But, as some of the Left wing have pointed out, SVB (and Silvergate and Signature) was the 'beneficiary' of Batshit J. Moron's 2018 rollback of Dodd-Frank for just those sized banks. The notion that an un-regulated banking system is a Good Thing is easy to disprove. Just go read up the wiki list of recessions/depressions/panics from 1789 through the 1800's. The count, more or less, is 28 for the 19th century. If you count up the years, a bit more than half (more or less, depending on how you count the part-years) of the 19th century was spent in recession or worse. The Good Olde Days.

Once again, the cryto-creeps, as adolescents and sex, think they've invented the Best New Thing. They're intent on repeating history. And skim boatloads of moolah for themselves in the process.

Despite the braying of Ramaswamy, SVB went under because its tech and biotech startups needed more cash. Tech and biotech are the furthest thing from ESG. The proximate cause of the run was the CEO's idiotic public announcements that it was selling off Treasuries (at a loss to face value) and seeking (but not yet having a committment) to sell $2.5 billion in new shares. By the way, that CEO Becker, was among those who'd lobbied long and hard to get his size bank out from under the rules of Dodd-Frank. I'd call that a Pyrrhic victory.

(This just in, and I mean just: it looks like it could be an inside job. Who wooda thunk it? Yeah, it's just evil ESG.)

The belly up of Silvergate and Signature are just more in the continuing saga of crypto-crash. What a total waste of wee little electrons.

Exactly how much power does it take to create a bitcoin? According to Digiconomist, as of Sept. 15, 2022, a single bitcoin transaction required 1,390.49 kWh, the equivalent of power consumption of an average U.S. household over nearly 48 days.

or, to put it in global terms

Annual energy consumption of bitcoin is projected to be 129.47 TWh in the year, or about as much power as is used annually in Sweden.

These are the folks who're convinced they've the Bestest Idea Ever.i

[update]
Here are all the gory details that you might want to read. And, no, he doesn't blame ESG.