"Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it..."
“In the early summer of 1914, Albert Einstein was about to start a prestigious new job as Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The position was a big deal for the 35-year old Einstein – confirmation that he was one of the leading scientific minds in the world. And he was excited about what he would be able to achieve there. But within weeks of Einstein’s arrival, the German government canceled plans for the Institute; World War I had broken out, and all of Europe was gearing up for one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.
The impact of the Great War was immeasurable. It cost the lives of 20 million people. It bankrupted entire nations. The war ripped two major European powers off the map – the Austro Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire – and deposited them in the garbage can of history. Austria-Hungary in particular boasted the second largest land mass in Europe, the third highest population, and one of the biggest economies. Plus it was a leading manufacturer of high-tech machinery. Yet by the end of the war it would no longer exist.
World War I also played a major role in the emergence of communism in Russia through the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Plus it was also a critical factor in the astonishing rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Without the Great War, Adolf Hitler would have been an obscure Austrian vagabond, and our world would be an entirely different place.
One of the most bizarre things about World War I was how predictable it was. Tensions had been building in Europe for years, and the threat of war was deemed so likely that most major governments invested heavily in detailed war plans. The most famous was Germany’s “Schlieffen Plan”, a military offensive strategy named after its architect, Count Alfred von Schlieffen. To describe the Schlieffen Plan as “comprehensive” is a massive understatement.
As AJP describes in his book "War by Timetable", the Schlieffen Plan called for rapidly moving hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the front lines, plus food, equipment, horses, munitions, and other critical supplies, all in a matter of DAYS. Tens of thousands of trains were criss-crossing Europe during the mobilization, and as you can imagine, all the trains had to run precisely on time. A train that was even a minute early or a minute late would cause a chain reaction to the rest of the plan, affecting the time tables of other trains and other troop movements. In short, there was no room for error.
In many respects the Schlieffen Plan is still with us to this day – not with regards to war, but for monetary policy. Like the German General Staff more than a century ago, modern central bankers concoct the most complicated, elaborate plans to engineer economic victory. Their success depends on being able to precisely control the [sometimes irrational] behavior of hundreds of millions of consumers, millions of businesses, dozens of foreign nations, and trillions of dollars of capital. And just like the obtusely complex war plans from 1914, central bank policy requires that all the trains run on time. There is no room for error.
This is nuts. Economies are comprised of billions of moving pieces that are beyond anyone’s control and often have competing interests. A government that’s $30 trillion in debt requires cheap money (i.e. low interest rates) to stay afloat. Yet low interest rates are severely punishing for savers, retirees, and pension funds (including Social Security) because they’re unable to generate a sufficient rate of return to meet their needs.
Low interest rates are great for capital intensive businesses that need to borrow money. But they also create dangerous asset bubbles and can eventually cause a painful rise in inflation. Raise interest rates too high, however, and it could bankrupt debtors and throw the economy into a tailspin. Like I said, there’s no room for error – they have to find the perfect balance between growth and inflation.
Several years ago hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio summed it up perfectly when he said, “It becomes more and more difficult to balance those things as time goes on. It may not be a problem in the next year or two, but the risk of not getting it right increases with time. The risk of them getting it wrong is clearly growing. I truly hope they don’t get it wrong. But if they ever do, people may finally look back and wonder how we could have been so foolish to hand total control of our economy over to an unelected committee of bureaucrats with a mediocre track record… and then expect them to get it right forever. It’s pretty insane when you think about it."
As Einstein quipped at the height of World War I in 1917, “What a pity we don’t live on Mars so that we could observe the futile activities of human beings only through a telescope…”
"It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge."
- H. L. Mencken, 1929
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Freely download "Ideas And Opinions", by Albert Einstein, here:
"In the closing days of 50 BC, the Roman Senate declared that Julius Caesar’s term as a provincial governor was finished. Roman law afforded its magistrates immunity to prosecution, but this immunity would end with Caesar’s term. As the leader of the populares faction, Caesar had many enemies among the elite optimates, and as soon as he left office, these enemies planned to bury him in litigation. Caesar knew he would lose everything: property, liberty, even his life.
Caesar decided it was better to fight for victory than accept certain defeat. In January 49 BC, he crossed the Rubicon River with his army, in violation of sacred Roman law, and began a civil war. “Alea iacta est,” said Caesar: The die is cast."
"I think we are living in a world of lies: lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and grandchildren of lies. One of the hardest things to accept is that the reality of our world is buried under so many layers of official deception and well-cultivated public ignorance about our history and our political system. Even if you break through somehow, momentarily, and hold up a fragment of the truth, most people have no context for dealing with it. It's like a bolt from the blue, they can't process the information. And so the sea of lies closes over us again, and again, and again. And yet the reality of our future appears on the horizon, denial be damned, an irresistible tsunami of destruction, changing all our lives forever.
These are the facts, and they can't be altered. But how to respond to this catastrophe? Shall we weep, moan, rend our garments, cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes? Shall we sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of republics? Shall we cower in the shadows and sing glamorous dirges for the Lost Cause, for vanished glories and broken dreams?
Or shall we come out fighting, unbowed, heads high, laughing fools to scorn, rejecting at every turn the moral authority of murderers and thieves to rule our lives, determine our reality, act in our name? Let's dispense with lamentation - give not a single moment to that emotional indulgence - and get right back to work, more determined than ever to bear down harder, dig deeper and excavate the radioactive nuggets of truth still glowing beneath the slag-heap of ruin.
Let's fight, let's reject, let's resist - without violence, the weapon of the stupid, the hormonal secretion of evolutionary backsliders in thrall to the chemical soup in their heads, dull primitives dressing up their ape-lust for power with scraps of religion, philosophy and cant. Let's fight these pathetic, malfunctioning wretches who lay their hands on our world and rape it like beasts in a mindless rut. Fight them with the truths we find, exposing their crimes and deadly hypocrisies to the people they've suckered, perverted and betrayed.
This is not an insurmountable task, no matter how impervious the Machine - that monstrous conglomeration of judicial bagmen, Congressional rubber stamps, psychopathic media moguls, dopehead radio ranters, sex-crazed theocrats, war profiteers, think-tank bleaters, Wall Street sharks, oilmen, Moonies, and woman-haters - might appear at the moment.
I don't know what else we can do, except to keep on telling as much of the truth as we can find, to anyone who will listen: reclaiming reality, fragment by fragment, one person at a time. It's an endless task- maybe a hopeless task- but the alternative is a surrender to the worst elements in our society- and in ourselves. It's worth the fight. Let's take it on. In the words of the old spiritual, let us be in no ways tired. The road back to sanity starts now."
it's in various chips, protein bars and bread, among others.
by Jack Iz
"Cricket powder or cricket flour, made of ground up crickets, is commonly sold under the name Acheta powder or Acheta protein and some brands do make food with Acheta powder in it. Snopes is actively investigating exactly how common that practice is. Although insects are not generally considered a staple of American diets, eating them is quite common worldwide.
In recent years, socialmediaposts have attempted to raise the alarm on Americans supposedly eating them - crickets, in particular - without knowing it. Among such posts is an image of a cricket with the caption:
"IT'S NOT CRICKET: If you don't want to eat crickets, cricket flour or powder, read all labels. It's known as Acheta protein and is now included as an ingredient in many foods, eg., chips, biscuits, grain and protein bars, some breads and pastas. Just do a search for Acheta powder... there's lots online about it and it's being promoted as a good thing. You decide."
This post makes three claims: 1.) Cricket powder, or cricket flour, is sold and marketed as "Acheta protein"; 2.) Cricket powder is commonly used in "many foods," generally breads and other carbohydrates; 3.) Cricket powder is being promoted as a good thing.
First off, yes, cricket powder, sometimes called cricket flour, does exist and can be found in some foods like "chips, biscuits, grain and protein bars, some breads and pastas," as the viral image alleges. It is also sometimes named Acheta powder, or Acheta protein, since the genus of the house cricket is Acheta domesticus.
The viral post did not name specific brands of food supposedly containing the powder. Snopes found several examples of companies that make products containing crickets or cricket powder, including Chirps and EXO protein. These companies openly advertise that their products are made of crickets or Acheta protein - although EXO exclusively describes its protein bars as containing "Acheta protein" without explaining its origin.
Snopes has reached out to several larger U.S. manufacturers of snack foods and breads to ask if they included the ingredient in products. We will update the story if we hear back from them.
As the text in the image suggests, edible crickets in different forms have grown in popularity in recent years. Several factors explain the trend, all of which are backed by peer-reviewed scientific studies, though research into the area is still relatively new. Among the positives often cited, crickets are high in protein, fiber, healthy fats and other nutrients. Cricket powder has also been found to be a good source of protein. Crickets are environmentally friendly because farming crickets doesn't require a lot of food or fancy equipment. Even more, crickets have a type of fiber in their exoskeleton called chitin that has anti-inflammatory properties and can improve gut health.
In the U.S., there is no explicit law governing the production of edible insects, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued guidelines on safety and health standards. Per our understanding of those guidelines, whole crickets used for food must be raised for that purpose. In other words, in the U.S., edible insects like crickets must explicitly be raised to be eaten, just like a cow or a chicken would be. But the FDA does not necessarily regulate cricket powder (i.e., Acheta powder) in the same way as whole crickets. According to the FDA, cricket powder is considered a protein powder - added to foods to increase protein content - and thus can be classified as a dietary supplement, which have slightly looser requirements.
Snopes contacted the FDA for additional clarification about these requirements and received the following information from an FDA spokesperson: "Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), food must be safe and may not bear any added poisonous or added deleterious substance that is unsafe. Food may not be prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions, and must be produced in accordance with Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) regulations for manufacturing/processing, packing, or holding human food. Therefore, insects that are used as food or food ingredient must comply with the FD&C Act.
The FD&C Act also includes requirements that pertain to the labeling of food and preventive controls, as applicable. The ingredients in food must be declared in the ingredient statement on the label of the food by their common or usual names. Manufacturers have a responsibility to ensure that the food they produce for the United States market is safe and complies with the FD&C Act and the FDA's implementing regulations."
As far as the powder found in foods, there's a key reason why some companies aren't using it: allergies. The exoskeletons in crickets are similar to those found in shellfish, including shrimp, crabs and lobsters. In fact, people with shellfish allergies are more likely to be allergic to crickets and other edible insects like cicadas. This fact makes adding crickets into various foods without advertising it as such quite risky. Mistakes in labeling could lead to a lawsuit.
But apart from the possibility of an allergic reaction, eating crickets doesn't appear to be harmful. However, if you are truly concerned about whether your snack foods have been supplemented with cricket protein, we recommend following the advice shared on social media: Look at the ingredients."
"Today's episode is nothing short of jaw-dropping. We're unpacking the dangerous and deceitful practices of a Wichita-based car dealership that's been slapped with a hefty $418,000 fine. Why? They sold cars without airbags, posing serious risks to unsuspecting buyers. Think driving a go-kart at 80 mph with no safety gear- yeah, that dangerous!"
"Russia's New Laser Aircraft Shocks The Entire World!"
"In this ground-breaking video, we explore the incredible possibilities of Russia's most recent technical marvel: the New Laser Aircraft. Prepare to be astounded as we explore the groundbreaking advances that have left the globe in awe.
Russia's cutting edge Laser Aircraft offers a significant advancement in military technology, demonstrating the country's unwavering pursuit of innovation and superiority in the aerospace domain. With its cutting-edge laser weapons, this aircraft has the potential to change the face of modern combat. Powered by cutting-edge laser technology, this aircraft has unrivalled precision and destructive potential, providing a glimpse into the future of aerial battle. From precise accuracy to quick target acquisition, Russia's New Laser Aircraft pushes the frontiers of what is possible in military aviation.
However, the shockwaves go beyond the sheer might of its weapons. The New Laser Aircraft also features unprecedented advances in stealth and manoeuvrability, allowing it to easily elude detection and outmanoeuvre opponent defences.
Join us as we delve into the inner workings of this game-changing aircraft, discovering the intricate engineering and technological mastery that went into its construction. From its powerful propulsion systems to its complex targeting algorithms, the New Laser Aircraft is designed to be as effective as possible on the battlefield. But, perhaps most crucially, we look at the geopolitical consequences of Russia's latest breakthrough. As tensions rise on the global stage, the appearance of this fearsome aircraft sends a clear message to both opponents and allies: Russia is at the forefront of military innovation, ready to defend its interests with unrivalled strength and precision.
Don't miss this unique look at Russia's new laser aircraft and the seismic impact it's poised to have on the global stage. Join us as we investigate the mysteries of this game-changing technology and learn about its extraordinary capabilities."
Relaxation Ambient Music presents prefect Space Ambient Music. It was made for dreamers, also for persons which like to meditate, to imagine deep space with its nebulas and exoplanets. Fly between galaxies, nebulas and planets with our relaxing ambient space music. This music video will help you relax your mind, stop thinking and have a rest."
“Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy practices galactic cannibalism, absorbing small galaxies that get too close and are captured by the Milky Way's gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus, The River.
Located over 50 million light years away, the large, distorted spiral NGC 1532 is seen locked in a gravitational struggle with dwarf galaxy NGC 1531 (right of center), a struggle the smaller galaxy will eventually lose. Seen edge-on, spiral NGC 1532 spans about 100,000 light-years. Nicely detailed in this sharp image, the NGC 1532/1531 pair is thought to be similar to the well-studied system of face-on spiral and small companion known as M51.”
Stunning Meditation on Walking into the Questions of Our Becoming”
by Maria Popova
“The role of the artist, James Baldwin believed, is “to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.” This, too, is the role of the forest, it occurs to me as I walk the ferned, mossed woods daily to lose my self and find myself between the trees; to “live the questions,” in Rilke’s lovely phrase – to let the rustling of the leaves beckon forth the stirrings and murmurings on the edge of the psyche, which we so often brush away in order to go on being the smaller version of ourselves we have grown accustomed to being out of the unfaced fear that the grandeur of life, the grandeur of our own untrammeled nature, might require of us more than we are ready to give.
Those disquieting, transformative stirrings are what the poet and philosopher David Whyte explores with surefooted subtlety in his poem “Sometimes,” found in his altogether life-enlarging collection “Everything Is Waiting for You” and read here by the poet himself as part of a wonderful short course of poem-driven practices for neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris’s “Waking Up” meditation toolkit (which I can’t recommend enough and which operates under an inspired, honorable model of granting free subscriptions to those who need this invaluable mental health aid but don’t have the means).
"I have mentioned here before the ospreys that patrol our beach - or "fish hawks," as they call them here - generally in the afternoon at about the time I take my long walk to the palm point. Magnificent birds with broad wings that glide seemingly effortlessly on the wind. And here's the thing: As often as not I am startled by a bird's shadow before I see the bird itself. That wide-winged shadow, sweeping across the white sand, sometimes across me. That flicker of chill as the osprey blocks the sun.
And generally when it happens I think of Plato's allegory of the cave. Prisoners in a cave are constrained to look only at a blank wall. Somewhere behind them there is a fire, and people come and go in front of the fire, casting shadows on the wall. The shadows are the only reality the prisoners know. They have no idea of the flesh-and-blood people behind them or the blazing fire. The prisoners know only what presents itself to their senses.
Forget for the moment Plato's point, which has to do with the duty of the philosopher to enlighten the benighted. There is a humbling moral to the story for all of us: We can only know what our senses - directly or indirectly - can perceive.
Who, a century ago, could have imagined the universe of the galaxies, or the marvelous dance of the DNA in every cell of our bodies? By cleverly extending our senses - limited as they are - with technological enhancements a whole new universe has opened up to us. Who can imagine what we might know a century from now? Plato's "real" world is like a shadow compared to the universe we inhabit today. Our own universe may be a shadow of a reality vastly more wonderful than anything we have so far dreamed.
Never mind. We live in the world we have. Even the osprey's shadow is magnificent in its own way. I am privileged to lift my eyes and see the feathered bird. And I have an intuition that there is more - much more - yet to see.”
"Does A 1904 Geopolitical Theory Explain The War In Ukraine?"
by John Wilder
"When I look at the war in Ukraine and other world events, I see evidence of Sir Halford John Mackinder. It would have been cool if he was the frontman for a 1910s version of Judas Priest, but no. Mackinder was a guy who thought long and hard about mountains, deserts, oceans, steppes, and wars. You could tell Mackinder was going to be good at geography, what with that latitude. The result of all this pondering was what he called the Heartland Theory, which was the founding moment for geopolitics.
What’s geopolitics? It’s the idea that one of the biggest influencers in human history (besides being human) was the geography we inhabit. Mackinder’s first version wasn’t very helpful, since he just ended up with “Indonesia” and the rest of the world, which he called “Outdonesia”.
Mackinder focused mainly on the Eurasian continent. Flat land with no obstacles meant, in Mackinder’s mind, that the land would be eventually ruled by a single power. Jungles and swamps could be a barrier, but eventually he thought that technology would solve that. Mountains? Mountains were obstacles that stopped invasions, and allowed cultures to develop independently. Even better than a mountain? An island.
There’s even a theory (not Mackinder’s) that the independent focus on freedom flourished in England because the local farmers weren’t (after the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Mormons, and Vikings were done pillaging) subject to invasion and were able to develop a culture based on a government with limited powers, along with rights invested in every man.
Mackinder went further, though. He saw the combination of Eurasia and Africa as something he called the World Island. If the World Island came under the domination of a single power, he thought, it would eventually rule the rest of the world – it would have overwhelming resources and population, and it would have the ability to outproduce (both economically and militarily) everything else. “Pivot Area” is what Mackinder first called the Heartland.
Mackinder, being English, had seen the Great Game in the 1900s, which in many cases was a fight to keep Russia landlocked. The rest of Europe feared a Russia that had access to the sea. Conversely, Russia itself was the Heartland of the Mackinder’s World Island. Russia was separated and protected on most of its borders by mountains and deserts. On the north, Russia was protected by the Arctic Ocean, which is generally more inaccessible than most of Joe Biden’s recent memories.
Russia is still essentially landlocked. The Soviet Navy had some nice submarines, but outside of that, the Russians have never been a naval power, and the times Russia attempted to make a navy have been so tragically inept that well, let me give an example: The sea Battle of Tsushima between the Japanese and Russians in 1905 was a Japanese victory. The Japanese lost 117 dead, 583 wounded, and lost 3 torpedo boats. The Russians? They lost 5,045 dead, 803 injured, 6,016 captured, 6 battleships sunk, 2 battleships captured. The Russians sank 450 ton of the Japanese Navy. The Japanese sunk 126,792 tons of the Russian fleet. Yup. This was more lopsided than a fight between a poodle and a porkchop.
Mackinder noted that the Heartland (Russia) was built on land power. The Rimlands (or, on the map “Inner Crescent”) were built on sea power. In the end, almost all of the twentieth century was built on keeping Russia away from the ocean, and fighting over Eastern Europe. Why? In Mackinder’s mind, “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland (Russia); Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” In one sense, it’s true.
Mackinder finally in 1943 came up with another idea, his first idea being lonely. I think he could see the way World War II was going to end, so he came up with the idea that if the United States were to team up with Western Europe, they could still command the Rimlands and contain the Soviet Union to the Heartland.
There are several reasons that the United States has responded with such an amazing amount of aid to Ukraine. The idea is to bleed Putin as deeply and completely as they can. Why? If they’re following Mackinder, this keeps Russia vulnerable. It keeps Eastern Europe from being under Russia’s control – if you count the number of “Battles of Kiev” or “Battles of Kharkov” you can see that it’s statistically more likely to rain artillery in Kiev than rain water.
This might be the major driver for Russia, too. A Russian-aligned (or at least neutral) Ukraine nicely plugs the Russian southern flank. And this is nearly the last year that Russia can make this attempt – the younger generation isn’t very big, and the older generation that built and can run all of the cool Soviet tech? They’re dying off. Soon all their engineers with relevant weapons manufacturing experience will be...dead. If Russia is going to attempt to secure the south, this is their only shot. Depending on how vulnerable the Russians think they are, the harder they’ll fight. NATO nations tossing in weapons isn’t helping the famous Russian paranoia.
I think that the United States, in getting cozy with China in the 1970s, was following along with Mackinder’s theory – I believe Mackinder himself said that a Chinese-Russian alliance could effectively control the Heartland and split the Rimland, given China’s access to the oceans. And that’s what China is doing now, with the Belt and Road Initiative. Remember Mackinder’s World Island? Here’s a map of the countries participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative:
"Halford Mackinder, Heartland Theory and Geographical Pivot 1"
by Geopoliticus
"In this presentation we discuss the theory for Geographic Causation in Universal History proposed by Sir Halford Mackinder in his paper - "The Geographic Pivot of History" delivered as a lecture in 1904. The theoretical propositions in the paper regarding how natural geography controls the flow of history of civilizations - with nature acting as a stage for man to act upon - was the most relevant contribution of Halford Mackinder towards developing a philosophic synthesis between geography, history and statesmanship, leading to the development of modern geopolitics.
In this part we see how he proposes the beginning of a new era in the international system from the 1900s, predicts (in a way) the break out of the First World War, and builds a unified model based on Geo-history for understanding the emergence and evolution of European civilization."
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Full screen recommended.
"Halford Mackinder, Heartland Theory and Geographical Pivot 2"
by Geopoliticus
"In this presentation we view Mackinder’s historical analysts by looking at the interactions between different Geographic zones, seeing how the Mongols used land power to unify the core of the World Island and how Europeans circumvented nomadic heartland power by investing in sea power. The core idea of Halford Mackinder’s Thesis was that in the beginning of the 20th century, geographers needed to develop a philosophical synthesis of geographical conditions and historical trajectories of nations over long ranges of time.
He attempted to do this for the history of Eurasia, which he called, the World Island. According to his theoretical model, there was a link between geographical conditions and the nature of geopolitical order, for one, but for further depth in understanding historical trajectories we need to do a wider scale analysis of interactions between different geographically influenced political orders by building a model of Heartland-Rimland interactions across history."
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Freely download "The Geographical Pivot of History",
Why is this important? Consider history, from which we learn nothing...
"The earliest evidence of prehistoric warfare is a Mesolithic cemetery in Jebel Sahaba, which has been determined to be approximately 14,000 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death. Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims that 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace." An unfavorable review of this estimate mentions the following regarding one of the proponents of this estimate: "In addition, perhaps feeling that the war casualties figure was improbably high, he changed 'approximately 3,640,000,000 human beings have been killed by war or the diseases produced by war' to 'approximately 1,240,000,000 human beings.'"
The lower figure is more plausible, but could still be on the high side considering that the 100 deadliest acts of mass violence between 480 BC and 2002 AD (wars and other man-made disasters with at least 300,000 and up to 66 million victims) claimed about 455 million human lives in total. Primitive warfare is estimated to have accounted for 15.1% of deaths and claimed 400 million victims. Added to the aforementioned figure of 1,240 million between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, this would mean a total of 1,640,000,000 people killed by war (including deaths from famine and disease caused by war) throughout the history and pre-history of mankind. For comparison, an estimated 1,680,000,000 people died from infectious diseases in the 20th century."
"A 10-billion-dollar bank was just shut down by U.S. regulators in the first big bank failure of 2024. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced the collapse of another major financial institution just a few days ago, the sixth of such kind over the last 12 months. The event has triggered fears of cascading bank failures, with economists warning about rising risks and mounting stress for almost 300 institutions. As economic uncertainty continues to weight on financial markets and add pressure on the commercial real estate sector, many banks that seem too big to fail are now facing unprecedented losses that could put them on a very destructive path, the experts say.
In the final days of April, Republic First Bank, a Pennsylvania-based financial institution has collapsed. Earlier this week, the FDIC issued a note saying it had stepped in to protect $6 billion in assets and $4 billion in customer deposits. The federal agency transferred the deposits to another regional bank after an agreement was reached.
Struggling under the regime of higher interest rates, Republic First Bancorp suffered painful losses due to its high exposure to the commercial real estate market. The bank's fourth quarter report cited "serious difficulties amid an elevated interest rate environment," with executives noting last year that the Fed's monetary policy to curb inflation "severely hurt" its commercial real estate portfolio.
The sector, which has been facing numerous challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic, accounted for nearly half of Republic Bank's loan book. The institution was also facing other significant problems, including low liquidity and battles with activist investors. In October 2023, Republic Bank managed to secure $35 million in funding from a group of investors led by George Norcross, but that plan fell apart in February.
Now, another regional lender has come forward to rescue the bank's assets. Fellow Pennsylvania-based bank Fulton Financial Corp has agreed to acquire all of Republic's assets and over $5.3 billion in liabilities. On Saturday, Republic Bank’s 32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank, reports say.
The move represents the latest crack – and the latest bandage job – in the distressed regional-banking industry. The failure marked the first major bank collapse of this year, following five that occurred in 2023, as the Fed's rate hikes destabilized the balance sheets of big financial players. When Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed last spring, many economists warned that more could follow – and their predictions have been proven accurate. Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, Heartland Tri-State Bank, and Citizens Bank, all collapsed in the succeeding months, as a result of the financial instability caused by policymakers.
