"indirectly bailed out" is not "bailed out". The US economy as a whole was "bailed out" by not having a cascading effect of bank failures, does that mean you were "bailed out" too? Are we just devaluing the term entirely?
Imagine thinking that billionaires actually bought SVB stock or held cash in there. Protip: their capital is tied up in dozens of companies, which were, indeed, bailed out.
> it has been given out for others to use, so again no, they were not bailed out
Uh, that's what wealthy people do -- they give money to other people to make them even more money. This was so transparently a billionaire bailout (Gary Tan & David Sacks were literally on a press tour), I fail to understand how people are so mesmerized by the shell game here.
...that's not what "bailout" means, a "bailout" can only happen before a bank collapses; SVB already collapsed, it cannot be bailed out, definitionally.
It's not a shell game, it's a fundamentally different situation where real people who are not billionaires are directly and immediately effected.
Further, there is not financial assistance in the form of "free money"; at best what will happen are loans to cover the difference between the available liquidity and the withdraws. The assets SVB once had will, upon maturity, pay for those loans with interest, and only then will investors be given a chance to recoup some of their investment.
I'm frankly fascinated by the abject cynicism by way of ignorance people think they can get away with on the Internet. Unreal...
> real people who are not billionaires are directly and immediately effected
Hard disagree on this. Startups die literally every day, not to mention that we just had tens of thousands of layoffs by big tech companies. In my view, this was a targeted bailout, meant to primarily protect the investment (into startups) of many Silicon Valley investment firms.
> only then will investors be given a chance to recoup some of their investment.
You're still harping on this "investors" thing, which is not even remotely related to my point. You can call me ignorant all day, but my point has zero to do with folks that bought SVB stock, and I'm not fully convinced you actually grasp that.
These aren't "startups that die" they're "businesses that did absolutely nothing wrong that die". Americans do not want to live in a world where a business can die through picking the wrong bank, full stop. Just because the investors in those startups don't get fleeced by a bank doesn't mean they're "bailed out".
And "startup" here is not "craps shoot on if it exists in a week" it's "a substantial percentage of businesses with VC backing in a general California geographic area but also across the country."
And yes, your point is flat wrong because you don't understand that a bailout is exclusive to investors in the direct company receiving financial support, which does not apply to the already failed SVB, nor does it apply to any depositors who are not receiving any additional money at all, just regaining access to their already existent funds.
You are misusing the word, so of course your point isn't making sense with the real definition of the term. I am convinced you don't actually grasp that.
> because you don't understand that a bailout is exclusive to investors in the direct company receiving financial support
Yeah, it's clear at this point that not only are you trying to play an annoying little semantic game, but to make things worse, you also have no material ___domain knowledge. For reference, a bailout explicitly does not serve investors, but rather immediate business counterparties.
From the second source: "A bailout occurs when the government
makes payments (including loans, loan guarantees, cash, and other types of
consideration) to a liquidity-constrained private agent in order to enable that
agent to pay its creditors and counterparties, when the agent is not entitled
to those payments under a statutory scheme."
> From the second source: "A bailout occurs when the government makes payments (including loans, loan guarantees, cash, and other types of consideration) to a liquidity-constrained private agent in order to enable that agent to pay its creditors and counterparties, when the agent is not entitled to those payments under a statutory scheme."
So literally not what happened, got it.
Of course you don't feel burdened by the meaning of words, but now at least anyone reading this will be aware that you don't know what "bailout" means, and that what happened in 2008 is nothing at all like what is happening now, and that was my goal. Mission accomplished.
Frankly David, you should know better. You've benefitted massively from these VCs already in your life, and at certain parts you would have been devastated to suddenly lose access to the very funds you're now advocating people be robbed of, but you clearly lack the ability to empathize with folks who want to travel a similar path to you.
Weirdly making things personal is often an indication of losing, not winning, an argument. Either way, I should know better than to get into debates with brand new anon accounts on HN. Cheers.
