After a train carrying highly toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, President Joe Biden hopped on Air Force One, transferred to a train and went to … Ukraine.
You see, the U.S. president is worried about their border. He doesn’t care about the U.S. border, mind you, just theirs. And he’s now been to the Ukraine border as many times as he’s visited our southern border: once.
But when billionaire bankers once again crashed and burned, Biden was on it fast.
Everything went south on Friday, when the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed — the second largest in history. Biden actually did some work over the weekend, assuring the financial sector that he’s got their back.
Then on Monday, 30 minutes before the New York Stock Exchange opened, Biden vowed that the federal government would hand out money just like the last time the banking world imploded, just 15 years ago.
“I instructed my team to act quickly to protect these interests,” the president said in an effort to stem massive market losses and widespread panic.
“First, all customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured — I want to — rest assured they’ll be protected and they’ll have access to their money as of today. That includes small businesses across the country that banked there and need to make payroll, pay their bills, and stay open for business,” he said.
“Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” Biden said at the White House. “Your deposits will be there when you need them.”
Of course, SVB has little to do with “small businesses.” Roblox, the online gaming firm worth $3 billion, had about $150 million in SVB. Streaming service Roku had nearly $500 million held in deposits with SVB. U.S. cryptocurrency firm Circle had $3.3 billion of its $40 billion of reserves at SVB.
Not exactly your mom and pop “small businesses.”
Meanwhile, SVB CEO Greg Becker sold $3.6 million of company stock less than two weeks before the bank collapsed, and, in another one of those amazing coincidences, Peter Theil’s Founder’s Fund — worth $11 billion — withdrew millions by Thursday morning, Bloomberg reported.
But Biden was there swiftly to help out his billionaire buddies — a lot of whom donated to his presidential campaign. That was in stark contrast to what happened in Ohio. On February 3, a Norfolk Southern Railway train derailed in East Palestine, home to just 5,000 people. The cars, carrying vinyl chloride, ethyl acrylate, and isobutylene, spilled everywhere.
For two straight weeks, Biden’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did next to nothing, not showing up on site until February 18. And three weeks after the accident, on February 23, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg finally set foot at the disaster.
And that visit came after former President Trump visited the town.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) mused about why Biden never showed.
“I think that our leadership, our media, and our politicians were slow to respond to this crisis, in part because a certain segment of our leadership feels like the people of East Palestine are a little out of style. They have the wrong politics. They’re a little too rural, maybe a little too white,” he said on Fox News.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeted: “Joe Biden will probably visit Silicon Valley Bank before he visits East Palestine.”
But Bernie Moreno, an entrepreneur with fewer than 10,000 followers on Twitter, also got off the best zinger. “Maybe if East Palestine renamed itself ‘East Silicon Valley,’ it would finally get the attention it deserves from Biden.”
