I was first an English and finally a Political Science major in college. I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of today’s financial markets.

But, like many of you, I was more than a little alarmed by news on Friday that the Silicon Valley Bank had collapsed and was seized by federal bank regulators. 

This is how it starts, I thought.

By Sunday, regulators had taken control of Signature Bank too.

Frankly, I did not find President’s Biden’s Monday morning assurances that no depositor at SVB or Signature would lose money - and the government would do “whatever” was necessary - reassuring.

To the contrary.

If the FDIC is an insurance instrument that protects deposits up to $250,000, why would it guarantee much larger sums? Shoot, if a former English major was aware of the FDIC limits, surely these customers were too when they stashed larger chunks of money there.

Yet there were reports of techies coolly emerging from SVB with multimillion dollar checks yesterday.

Lucky for them!

And where does it stop? From 2008 to 2012, 465 American banks failed in the U.S. What if more banks go under? Won’t the FDIC run out of money making everyone whole?

I guess that’s when Biden’s “whatever” comes into play.

Gulp.

Think about it: If your house is insured for $100,000 but is actually worth $500,000 when it burns to the ground, it’s unlikely your insurance company is going to pay out one cent more than $100,000. And it’s even more unlikely the government is going to be magnanimous and make up the difference.

Then again, you’re not a so-called “techbro” company like SVB and you don’t have powerful Democrats like Barney Frank on the board as Signature Bank does.

You’re definitely not a Chinese start-up company. And yes, there were many of these China-based companies - no one seems to know how many - invested at SVB.

From CNBC:

The online system for opening an account at SVB had allowed the use of a Chinese mobile number for verification, according to one Chinese tech startup founder who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the situation. The source highlighted that they once had tens of millions of U.S. dollars at SVB.

He’s since moved most funds out, but he said he still had more than $250,000 at SVB.

Along with the backing of a mainstream venture capitalist, a startup could open an account at SVB within a week, the source said in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation. “Mainstream traditional banks, such as Standard Chartered, HSBC, Citi have strict compliance and it takes a long time to start a bank account with them. It can take up to 3-6 months,” he said.

In essence, the FDIC is breaking its own rules to bailout woke tech and Chinese startup companies and others that found it easier to bank with SVB than at other, larger banks

Yet Biden and his mouthpiece Karine Jean-Pierre insist this is not a bailout.

Sorry. If it looks like a bailout, walks like a bailout and operates like a bailout, it’s a bailout no matter what you call it.

As Alex Berenson said in another Tweet that contains a word I am not saying until Lent is over, “Basically the Fed knows it has to keep interest rates high to crack inflation (which means hurting the economy) -BUT IT IS NOW PROTECTING BANKS FROM THOSE HIGH RATES. No joke This is pure #$%* Main Street to save Wall Street move.”

Sure looks that way to this former English major. And it is most definitely not a joke.

To understand more I plan to tune in this morning to Tony Macrini a 8 on AM-790 WNIS. His guest will be Dennis Gartman, one of the leading experts on the financial and commodities markets in the world.

Gartman will break down the current situation better than anyone.