by Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts:

As I reported at the time, the banking crisis is not limited to Silicon Valley Bank.  Silicon Valley Bank’s failure was followed by the failures of New York Signature Bank and First Republic Bank of San Francisco.  Now three more banks have had their stock prices collapse–Western Alliance, PacWest Bankcorp, and Metropolitan Bank.

As I have emphasized, the Federal Reserve’s higher interest rates are the cause of the bank troubles.  The decade of zero interest rates left banks with portfolios of low interest rate assets on their balance sheets.  As the Federal Reserve raised rates, these assets declined in value.  Depositors saw that the banks were technically insolvent  and withdrew funds.  Others withdrew funds because they can now get higher interest rates from money market funds.