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    banking deregulation

    Employees stand outside shuttered SVB.

    How to Bust the Bankers’ Club

    C. J. Polychroniou speaks with progressive economist Gerald Epstein about why alternative banking is possible and urgently needed.

    C.J. Polychroniou
    Feb 29, 2024

    It’s been almost a year since the banking crisis kicked off last March. On Friday, March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank, or SVB, a state-chartered commercial bank based in Santa Clara, California, collapsed after facing a sudden bank run and capital crisis. SVB’s collapse was the second largest bank failure in U.S. history since Washington Mutual in 2008. Two days later, New York-based Signature Bank also collapsed due to yet another bank run. But that was not the end of bank failures in 2023. On May 1, the San Francisco-based First Republic Bank, plagued by many of the same problems as those that doomed SVB and Signature Bank, also went under and was seized in turn by regulators who promptly sold all of its deposits and most assets to JP Morgan Chase. Two more banks would go on to declare insolvency later in the year, bringing the number of failed banks to a total of five.

    Indeed, 2023 was the worst year for U.S. banks since 2008. But why do U.S. banks continue to fail after the reforms that were implemented in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis? Why does the business model of commercial banks remain so fragile? World renowned progressive economist Gerald Epstein, author of the recently published book Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us, tackles these questions in the interview that follows. Epstein is professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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    Opinion
    banking system
    U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren

    Challenging First Republic Bank Sale, Warren Says JPMorgan Chase Is Big Enough

    "The single biggest threat to the U.S. banking system is more concentration," said the Massachusetts Democrat. "A bank as big as JPMorgan shouldn't be allowed to get even bigger."

    Jessica Corbett
    May 18, 2023

    U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised alarm about the recent sale of First Republic Bank to JPMorgan Chase—which followed a government takeover of the former—in a letter to financial regulators and a series of questions during a Thursday hearing.

    "The failure of First Republic Bank shows how deregulation has made the too-big-to-fail problem even worse," the Massachusetts Democrat said after the controversial sale earlier this month. "Congress needs to make major reforms to fix a broken banking system."

    Keep ReadingShow Less
    News
    first republic bank
    A man wheels boxes outside a First Republic Bank office.

    Rewarding Risk Drove First Republic to Failure

    Risk was at the center of every financial upheaval since the 1980s. What can be done to keep history from repeating itself and threatening the banking system, economy, and jobs of everyday people?

    Alexandra Digby
    Dollie Davis
    Robson Hiroshi Hatsukami Morgan
    May 02, 2023

    First Republic Bank became the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the lender was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and sold to JPMorgan Chase on May 1, 2023. First Republic is the latest victim of the panic that has roiled small and midsize banks since the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023.

    The collapse of SVB and now First Republic underscores how the impact of risky decisions at one bank can quickly spread into the broader financial system. It should also provide the impetus for policymakers and regulators to address a systemic problem that has plagued the banking industry from the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s to the financial crisis of 2008 to the recent turmoil following SVB’s demise: incentive structures that encourage excessive risk-taking.

    Keep ReadingShow Less
    Opinion
    wall street

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