MARK BARNES: Easy money at the heart of recent bank failures
It’s always easier to hand out sweeties than it is to administer medicine
11 May 2023 - 05:00
I doubt we’ll ever have a repeat of the banking crisis of 2008 (once bitten), but there may well be more bank failures before this current batch is done. There have already been some fairly large, grown-up banks that have had the confidence of their depositors eroded to the extent that liquidity becomes a problem.
So far this has led to opportunities for even bigger banks to swallow them up without having to pay a premium to net asset values, because goodwill has evaporated. In fact, discounts to face value are the order of the day. Nice work if you can get it, for the already big (too big?) players. ..
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