Boy, I bet half of you are already heading for the comments section just from the title. But hear me out.

I’m not unsympathetic to the depositors. Silicon Valley Bank had a lot of new start ups as customers. Losing that capital will end many of those businesses – for now.

Here’s the thing: leaving more money than was insured in an account is beyond stupid. Did NONE of these folks have the good sense to hire an accountant? No financial officer or accountant worth their salt would have said to leave so much liquid capital exposed like that.

I’m the furthest you can be from a financial advisor, investment counselor, accountant, or economist. My only financial advise to ANYONE is to NOT TAKE FINANCIAL ADVISE FROM ME! I have to go watch The Plain Bagel to get him to explain what Patrick Boyle said in his latest video. I’m learning a lot, but it makes me just about as qualified to perform brain surgery. Can I pencil you in for Thursday?

No? Good then you also won’t follow anything you think sounds like financial advise from me.

But really, is having your money insured anything other than commonsense? If my miniscule bank account ever gets within earshot of the FDIC limits I’ll be opening a second account. I just can’t fathom a business that doesn’t protect its assets in the most basic of ways.

I also wouldn’t invest in such a business. Oh, I know, it’s not just a bunch of small start ups. Several large companies did the same dumb thing, including my beloved Roku. No, I’m not an investor – my bank account would go into conniptions at the thought – I just use the service and love it. Not so sure I’ll ever invest in it, assuming Mr. Bank Account ever grows up.

I know zero about investing. I am not advising anyone at all and if you think this is financial advise you’re wrong. I just don’t think I want to trust a company that doesn’t have the sense to protect its cash. This seems sensible to me. Your mileage may vary.

On to the politics where I do know a little something. People that never face the consequences of their actions never learn to stop doing stupid stuff. Banks were bailed out massively in 2008. It’s only been twelve years! Looks to me like someone didn’t get the ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ memo.

Are modern bankers morons? Nope. There are already allegations that the very bankers that oversaw the collapses were not so long ago lobbying for reduced regulation – which they got. That’s not the sign of stupid – it’s the sign of arrogance. We can do stupid stuff because we won’t get caught and if we do, Uncle Sam will bail us out.

If we want to be doing this again in a few years, bail them out now. Banks will get sloppy again. Businesses will stop taking precautions with their funds. Why not? After all, Uncle Sam will take care of them.

Until something goes so horribly wrong that he can’t. That’s, thankfully, not what we’re facing now. Let’s skip the trip to getting into that kind of mess. We bailed them out once. That was enough. Those who were smart enough to learn from it are doing fine. Those who weren’t need to learn the hard way before they manage to make it even worse.

I know, I’m a big meanie. Emotionally, I want to just bail them all out and make it all better. Intellectually, I know that’s only going to lead one way – downhill. If banks didn’t learn to not take stupid risks twelve years ago they certainly won’t learn it this time. They will learn the opposite; it’s okay to be stupid because Uncle Sam has your back.

Look, the US economy is resilient if anything. It’s also freaking HUGE. The US enjoys a lot of leeway because of our reserve currency status (get Plain Bagel to explain that one). We’re not going under anytime soon, no matter how insane Congress is. But that doesn’t mean we can’t go too far.

See, things change. Politics is groups of people making decisions. Change is pretty well baked into that. The day will come when the US is no longer the world’s superpower. Probably not in my lifetime but it will happen.

I see no point in hurrying that process along by making consistently bad choices. Sure, we’re going to make mistakes, lots of them, but we don’t have to repeat them. If we keep bailing out every bank that does reckless stupid crap, we’re eventually going to hit a wall where we can’t. It never rains when the roof doesn’t have a few holes in it.

Then what? It’ll be ten times worse because we’ve trained our banking system to do stupid crap and take dumb risks. Once they know that peeing on the tile just gets them yelled at, they are going to be heading straight for the carpet.

Unless we take the newspaper to their collective hinnies now. It’s not nearly as mean as letting them ruin themselves by continuing this destructive cycle. A few regional banks will not break the whole system so now is the time to put a stop to it.

I’m fully aware Biden has already guaranteed we’ll bail them out. Being fair, stopping the hemorrhaging was probably somewhat necessary. But that doesn’t have to be the end of it nor should it be. Plan B – hammer time!

Investigations have already started but don’t you just sit back and forget it. If you do, so will your representative after a while for exactly the same reason. People get busy; unless they know something is really important, they will often let things slide.

The banks, of course, are facing massive litigation. This is good. But the businesses should be facing major audits as well. What were they thinking parking cash uninsured in bank accounts like that? You want Uncle Sam to fix it? Fine, but there will be a trip to the woodshed so you learn not to be so careless in the future.

Next time you could get really hurt.