March 19, 2023
WE ARE TOO WOKE TO GO BROKE!
Many readers disagreed with my recent article castigating the government for bailing out Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) pointing out that this was not really a bailout and that not allowing multimillionaires and woke start-ups to go belly up could cause a contagion that could bring down the entire financial system.
I now realize the error of my ways, so much so, that I have decided to give up being an ophthalmologist and embrace a second career – banking. I have filed the papers to incorporate JNLB (Joe’s Never Lose Bank) with offices located in Greenwich, New Canaan and Darien.
My bank will follow the SVB business model but in a much more aggressive fashion. And you would not believe the talent I have attracted to sit on our board:
Gregory Becker – Former SVB CEO who gave himself a $3.6 million bonus on top of his $10 million salary a week before his bank went belly up.
Joseph Gentile – Chief administrative officer of SVB Securities and chief financial officer for the fixed income division of Lehman Brothers a year before it went belly up causing the 2008 financial crisis.
Elizabeth Holmes – The founder of Theranos, who managed to convince luminaries such as General Mattis and Henry Kissinger that she could diagnosis cancer with a finger prick of blood. She was worth $4.5 billion until her con was exposed. But we cannot ignore such talent. She will attend the board meetings via Zoom calls from her prison cell.
Henry Paulson – Former Goldman Sachs CEO who as Treasury Secretary for President George W. Bush, oversaw the bailout of his bankrupt former company so that his Goldman Sachs stock maintained its billion-dollar valuation.
Barack Obama – Former president who implemented Paulson’s bailout plan while having the charisma to bamboozle minorities that he was serving their interests even though they were being evicted from their homes.
Ruth Madoff – Bernie Madoff’s widow
Notice how this board does not consist entirely of white males, making a JNLB a leader in DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) movement. We are still working on finding a trans activist for the board but give us time. In the meantime, all board meetings will begin by having drag queens read from Das Kapital.
Now the skeptical reader may say – how are you going to attract depositors?
We will embrace the SVB model in which the more you deposit in your checking account, the higher the interest rate. At SVB, the poor saps who believed the FDIC would only protect deposits of $250,000 or less were paid basically nothing. But if you were a multi-millionaire or the CEO of some start up, you received 4.50% on your checking account and feigned ignorance of this rule (even though you had an MBA from Harvard or Wharton) and whined when your deposit was not protected. And we will be giving 6.50% on deposits over $10 million.
Furthermore, instead of giving out toasters to new depositors, we will be handing out Donald Trump dart boards. And I will personally do ten free Botox treatments on the trophy wife or mistress of any man who deposits $10 million or more.
We will be specializing in climate change start ups since the Biden administration is proposing $45 billion in taxpayer subsidies for such initiatives.
One idea proposed by Ms. Holmes was to build off-coast wind farms so that more whales will die and become sources of meat and oil. This meat could be sold to poor seniors who can no longer afford other meats because of inflation. Furthermore, since the climate change agenda is making energy unaffordable to the poor, whale oil could be sold to them so they can light their houses at night.
Mr. Gentile proposed we finance more destruction of the rain forests in South America and Africa in order to obtain elements such as Lithium for the batteries of climate-saving electric cars. He was especially impressed with the willingness of 10-year old African children to risk their lives mining the Lithium for very little money in order to save the planet.
Mr. Paulson proposed that we finance a carbon exchange, in which we tax grimy fossil fuel businesses by forcing them to buy carbon-use credits and sell them at higher prices if they reduce their carbon footprint. Goldman Sachs off course would gladly oversee the exchange market.
President Obama was concerned that environmentalists and civil rights activists may object; but, Mr. Becker pointed out that we could just give them jobs paying $300,000 in our DEI department and they would quickly shut up.
And of course if our bank started losing money, would could scream that the financial system was about to collapse. After all – this worked for the Brady bonds bail out, the Texas Savings and Loan bailout, the bailout of the Mexican Peso, of the internet bubble, of Greenwich Capital, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and of course for SVB. It will work again.
President Obama wondered how long we could get away with this. He pointed out that the middle class is getting a bit skeptical about the climate change movement, as it was causing them pay more energy costs, higher taxes and now higher bank fees to bailout the banks financing it.
Mr. Paulson replied “Who cares. Maybe more of these grubby Trumpsters will die from fentanyl overdoses and we can get more immigrants to come here and work for nothing and increase corporate profits. Besides, some of us billionaires are bankrolling the ballot harvesting operations in the swing states so Biden is going to win reelection even if he is wearing a diaper in a nursing home. Look how we elected Senator Fetterman by paying $300 million to harvest ballots. Janet Yellen will remain treasurer secretary and she will rubberstamp any bailout plan. There is no more democracy. Just feudalism: where those of us who are superior keep the inferiors in their place while we revel in luxury.”
The former president just nodded his head.
So please set up a checking account in JNLB. We are too woke to go broke. If you can’t beat’em, join’em.