Who Will Protect the Global Economy From California?

The Urge to Get Rich Quick Makes the Golden State a Threat to the World

Don’t bank on California, especially when banks are involved.

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse is widely discussed as a harbinger of the future, a sign of problems and disruptions in the technology businesses that were its best customers. But this bank failure, the second largest in U.S. history, actually fits a very old pattern—of California and its industries putting the economies of the nation and the world at risk.

Our state’s history of precipitating economic crisis is singular, and rooted in the same California characteristic that so often makes us successful. We aren’t …

The Depression Era Laws That Led to the 1980s Savings and Loan Crisis

Federal Insurance for Bank Deposits Encouraged Consumers, Bankers, and Politicians to Make Riskier and Riskier Choices

In 1986, Citicorp vice chairman Hans H. Angermueller sat before Congress, complaining that federal red tape made a nightmare of buying a special type of bank that specialized in making …

What George Bailey’s Building and Loan Company Can Still Teach Us About Banking

In His Time and Ours, Big Lenders Often Get a Pass, While Small Banks and the Communities They Serve Are Left Vulnerable

The bank run scene in It’s a Wonderful Life always makes me cry real tears. If you care about America, you should love the scene too—and not just because it …

How Iceland’s Rugged Viking Heritage Helped Salvage Its Economy

The Nordic Nation Fought Back Against Its Creditors, Then Rebuilt Its Wrecked Banking System

What can we learn from the Vikings?

I usually write in this space about the economies of the Pacific Rim, and the lessons they hold for policymakers in the United States. …

Why Your Bank Wants No Part of Your Business

Post-Recession Banking Reforms Are Throttling Small Independent Companies

Capital is cheap almost everywhere except for in the heart of the American economy—independent U.S. companies with less than $100 million in revenues.

This is the downside of regulations, enacted …

What It Means to Be ‘California’s Bank’

The Banc of California Bets Big on the State's Small Businesses and Local Communities

If California were a bank, what sort of bank would it be?

Banc of California has a new and intriguing answer to that question: In just six years, “California’s bank,” as …