The latest revelation in the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse is that SVB donated or pledged over $73 million to Black Lives Matter (BLM) or groups connected to BLM.
This information comes from the Claremont Institute Database, which tracks the funding that has been provided by American corporations to the "BLM movement and related causes."
The fact that SVB donated these tens of millions to BLM is not surprising given other information that has been learned about SVB since its failure.
The New York Post has published a report indicating that SVB's 12-member board of directors included several individuals with ties to U.S. President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY), Hillary Clinton, and more Democrats.
The Post, for example, reports:
One is a Hillary Clinton mega-donor who went to a Shinto shrine to pray after Donald Trump won the White House. Another worked for President Barack Obama before her own political career spectacularly failed. A third is a prolific contributor to Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi — who owns a Napa Valley vineyard just 15 minutes from the former House speaker’s.
SVB, prior to its collapse, did not hide the fact that it was firmly committed to "diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
In a report from August 2020, SVB wrote:
Innovation is global and is touching every aspect of our lives, which is creating even more need for inclusiveness of ideas and approaches. We are on a journey committed to increasing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in our workplace, with our partners and across the innovation economy.
Many are now arguing that this leftist control and direction of SVB played a role - if not a deciding role - in the bank's collapse.
Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, is among those who are making such an argument.
Hild recently told The Federalist, "Time after time we see the same pattern: companies that are the most concerned with ESG scores and woke politics do the worst jobs serving their customers."
"The rest of corporate America should learn from SVB’s failure now, before they are the next company to make headlines for comically poor management," he added.
Democrats are now trying to push back against this argument. The Guardian, for example, just published an opinion piece called, Be serious, conservatives. "Wokeness" didn't cause Silicon Valley Bank's Demise.
But, as Fox News contributor Douglas Murray recently explained:
If you look at the criteria that SVP had out there for not just who they wanted to employ, but who they were going to loan to, they consistently emphasized not whether the bank was going to get its money back in this mad financial arrangement that it had, but whether or not it was lending to enough minority businesses and enough female-run businesses and so on.
That certainly doesn't sound like a formula for success. And, as Hild noted, examples now multiplying that show that, if anything, it's a formula for failure.
