Failed Banks Shouldn't Be Cash Machines for Disgraced Executives

This piece was originally published by Newsweek (Center bias). 

In debates about who to blame for failures at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and fears of contagion as we see UBS buy out Credit Suisse, a major angle is being overlooked: the wide swath of common ground on this issue.

CEOs Greg Becker of Silicon Valley Bank and Joseph DePaolo of Signature were compensated last year $9.9 million and $8.6 million respectively just before their banks failed and the FDIC had to bail out SVB's depositors.

We are in consensus: we must end profiteering from bank failures.

This can be addressed easily—if only the political class would stop playing for political points and work with each other to solve problems.

What can they do? One key is to change financial incentives to avoid this kind of crisis.

Congress can require banks with FDIC protection to adopt a "prevent profiteering from default" policy. When the FDIC must bail out accounts, all compensation (salary, bonuses, etc.) above $200,000 from the prior year would be turned over to the FDIC. This would give leaders strong financial incentives to avoid failure and default.

Supporters of free markets should love this. It avoids more regulation from the government and makes bank leaders accountable to the market, not the government.

Populists on both sides should love this. They can stop the injustice of managers and CEOs making millions when their businesses are being bailed out.

Individuals who profit from the current situation, who make major donations and lobby both sides to ensure profits are privatized while losses are socialized, will not like this. Too bad.

Yes, Republicans and Democrats agree. But no one seems to have noticed where they agree—just where they disagree.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is calling for more regulation and blaming leaders in Washington, especially the Trump administration that rolled back some of the Dodd-Frank banking regulations in 2018. But that is not all. She also wrote in the same op-ed that "it's critical that those responsible not be rewarded."

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) recently said on Meet the Press that it was "very, very clear" that those changes in 2018 "did not impact this particular issue." But he separated those discussions from saying "it's okay to allow the owners of a bank to lose their resources."

Tucker Carlson pointed out how the CEO "apparently sold more than $2 million in bank stock over the last two weeks." No one is happy about individuals profiting from this crisis.

But regardless of the impact of regulations being rolled back, interest rates being raised rapidly by the Fed, or any of the other possible factors blamed for the failure, everyone agrees that CEOs and executives should not profit from these failures.

Everyone except those who profit from this mess.

Those profiteers are a tiny minority, even if they do have the ears of our politicians and regulators. Surely our leaders can do more than just pay lip service to the idea that a bad day's work deserves a healthy pay cut, unlike the executive bonanza that followed the housing crisis of 2007 to 2009.

Will our elected officials work with each other to get this done? Or will they just play more political football? It's time to harness the frustration that spans across the aisle and make sure failure doesn't lead to great rewards.

John Gable, CEO and Co-founder, AllSides (politically lean right)

Scott McDonald, CTO and Co-founder, AllSides (politically center)

Joan Blades, Co-founder, Living Room Conversations and MoveOn.org (politically left)

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.