It's common wisdom that generals always fight the last war. Vietnam was the perfect example. Instead of large, set piece battles like WW2 and even the Korean War, Westmorland and other generals found an opponent who used guerilla war and attrition to sap the will of their opponent. We never really found an answer to this kind of warfare.
The fall of SVB and its aftermath teaches a similar lesson. SVB, despite what its right wing critics opine was a typical, fairly well capitalized bank which made investment mistakes which made it vulnerable to a run on its assets. Now, the pundits all want to compare it to Lehman Brothers in 2008 and say the sky will fall unless every depositor is made whole. As it happens, SVB probably has enough collateral to do that with minimal bail out money. It's funny how the silicon valley tech bros are ardent libertarians until they become socialists when their money is threatened. But I digress.
The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 is nothing like what just happened to SVB, but nonetheless, we will drag out all the hoary cliches to make it so.
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