lxm

> Germany sets the gas levy that would allow Uniper and its rivals to pass on 90% of spiralling gas prices to customers.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/how-russian-gas-cris...

It was insolvent and forced into fixed price deliveries that it had to procure through suddenly expensive spot market.

and the book “Console Wars”. This is probably the most dramatic betrayal story you can get in business history.

City of LA had access to government-owned land, fairly large pool of labor and probably some bulk discounts on building materials. Yet after you add consultants, construction unions and other well-connected entities jumping onto the gravy train, average unit ended up above $600k, way above an average "for-profit" luxury condo in LA

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-23/la-paying...

Apartment rents fall as new supply hits market https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34976493

Apartment REITs are already 30%ish below their 52w highs https://www.google.com/finance/quote/RESI:NYSEARCA?window=1Y... so it seems like the market has anticipated that move and priced their yields in line with risk-free interest one can get on Treasuries.

With rates approaching zero it was rational to load up on second mortgages, driving up the totality of the debt. If you managed to lock in a sub-3% loan few years back, it's irrational to accelerate repayment.

This was probably valid back when car seats were rudimentary, but nowadays it seems like a strapped baby in a properly installed car seat is quite safe?

Media orgs could ban the indexing of their pages by specific scrapers, and users on those social networks would just see a raw URL, not a preview with headline+image+blurb?

They suddenly needed cash in 2023, but the deposit train had run dry due to the general slowdown among their customer base, at which point they were forced into selling the assets they acquired in 2020-2021 and locking those losses.

Had they attracted enough new deposits, they could've let their long-dated portfolio run its course. Maybe even sell parts of it a few years from now if the rates went back to 0% territory, making those long-term bonds attractive again.

They weren't buying toxic assets or anything. Chase, BofA and Wells Fargo own long-term debt as well, just not to the extent SVB did.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/11/silicon-valley-bank-employee...

Such extreme exposure to interest rate risk would've blown up in some other ways - say, a large client processing a routine payroll, executing stock buyback, or investing in an entity that banks elsewhere.

> Calculating the amount of a highly liquid asset. In calculating the amount of a highly liquid asset included in the liquidity buffer, the bank holding company must discount the fair market value of the asset to reflect any credit risk and market price volatility of the asset.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-10/startu...

> One obvious question is: If you are “another, healthy bank” working through this weekend to buy SVB and assume its deposits, how much would you pay for the assets, which were worth $212 billion in December? 8 I am pretty sure the answer is higher than $8 billion, the amount of insured deposits: The FDIC will not be on the hook for the insured deposits. The $15 billion of FHLB advances are also quite senior and will presumably be no problem to pay back.

> I would also guess — not investing or banking advice! — that the answer will also turn out to be higher than $188 billion, which is the total amount of deposits plus FHLB advances. I say this not because I have done a detailed analysis of SVB’s assets but because it seems bad for the FDIC to wind up a big high-profile bank in a way that causes significant losses for depositors, including uninsured depositors. There was a run on SVB in part because there hasn’t been a big bank run in a while, and people — venture capitalists, startups — were naturally worried that they might lose their deposits if their bank failed. Then the bank failed.

> If it turns out to be true that they lose their deposits, there could be more bank runs

Or am I wrong in understanding the nature of the ban?

Vs placing an adamant bet on paying SF rent, SF salaries and urging others to do the same? https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Twilio-CEO-wants-tech-c...

When COVID-19 travel bans proliferated in early 2020, AirBnB proactively refunded my money for a reservation that was nominally no longer cancellable.

VRBO told me to reach out to the host, which turned out to be this apartment rental agency that would ghost my emails for a few days, then offer future credit, then told me to get in line as they have many customers, and eventually processed the refund 3 months or so down the road.

Needless to say, I no longer use VRBO.

One is required to have a valid credit card on their Tesla app (even if supercharging is free, idle fees are not) and it's tied to the VIN of the vehicle.