August 31, 2023

Better Markets Month in Review Newsletter – August 2023

Below is the opening of our monthly newsletter. View the full newsletter online here.

Hi friend,

Below in our newsletter you’ll see the dog days of August were as active as ever for our team. In addition to a fast-paced regulatory schedule, developments in areas like fintech, and the deepening climate crisis are creating more and more areas where the public interest needs to be protected.

That said, some issues are timeless, perhaps none more so than too-big-too-fail financial institutions that are so big, complex, interconnected, leveraged, and important that their failure risks crashing the entire financial system and economy. That’s what happened 15 years ago when the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy and caused the worst financial crash since 1929 and the worst economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The stunning headlines, market losses, and bailouts that resulted from that crisis had a devastating impact on both our financial system and Main Street families across the country. More than 25 million Americans were thrown out of work; more than 16 million Americans faced foreclosure filings; savings, educations, retirements and much more evaporated for tens of millions more, with many not recovering for a decade if ever.

While we made progress in some areas since the 2008 crash, our financial system remains incredibly vulnerable as proved by the recent failures and bailouts of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank. That’s why we are using the 15th anniversary of the crash of Lehman as an important time to discuss the causes, consequences, and ongoing impacts of that crash, too-big-to-fail generally, and all things finance and economics.

On September 13th, Better Markets will host a virtual conference to dive into the policy implications of those many issues that continue to threaten our financial system, and discuss what policymakers and regulators can do about it.