Thinking of paying my taxes early...

The recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and then Credit Suisse has spooked some people into thinking we may be heading into a more widespread banking crisis.

SVB sold its bond portfolio and Credit Suisse had to take out an emergency loan from the Swiss Central Bank, and it took only a few days for both of these to collapse following release of the news in each case.

The two banks were in very different situations, but what caused their collapse in both cases was a rapid loss of confidence from investors who rushed to take out their money on getting the slightest sniff of the fact that there might be a problem.

SVB has just collapsed now, but the the U.S. government has guaranteed that investors will get their money back, while Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second largest bank. was bought by UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, in a deal backed by the Swiss government.

The official line is 'don't panic'

The United Kingdom Central Bank says it is monitoring the situation closely but assured people that their funds are safe (most articles in the UK then go on to cite the £85K savings guarantee scheme).

And we are also being reminded that banks are better capitalised than back in 2008.

But people ARE Panicking!

The problem with any arguments about 'how safe the financial system' is that more people today obviously think it is bullshit - the collapse of SVB was the most rapid in U.S. banking history, and it's as if it didn't take that much at all for people to be spooked.

And just today we've had an announcement that interest rates are going up AGAIN, and all that says to me (and anyone else) is more defaults on loans and lower spending, so a further slowdown of the global economy.

And it's also obvious that governments are themselves out of cash - after Covid and combatting the rising cost of living, facing an ever ageing population and especially in Britain the cost of Brexit and Liz Truss' $50 billion mistake I'm not convinced there is much scope to even bail out banks should they collapse.

I think you can see this in recent increase in the Bitcoin price...

It's more and more people heding out of FIAT and into this algorithmic, set-inflation currency.

I mean everyone knows that a banking bailout simply means more Quantitative Easing and more inflation and more economic shit anyway!

Thinking of paying my taxes early...

I'm kind of envisaging a situation where my banks collapse, I lose my funds and the government doesn't bail me out in the next year.

The only FIAT I hold is what's ready for paying taxes (urrgh, I know), but I also imagine that in a financial crisis HMRC aren't going to give a toss about self-employed people - all of us who lose our savings are still going to have to pay that tax.

I'm half tempt to just pay it now I think the situation is THAT BAD!