OK, the mixmaster format of this place means it’s an irrelevant segue, but having just summarized a BusinessWeek story about office vacancies and the looming problems with vacancies …
I am reminded that “timing is everything.”
BusinessWeek closes on Thursday nights, whereupon the info is transmitted to the printing plant they use which puts ink to paper on Friday and delivers the results to USPS by Friday night. If you are close enough you may get your issue on Saturday, but mostly they’ll be delivered on Monday.
I know this arcane bit of info because about 20 years ago a couple of smarties at Goldman and Merrill convinced some workers at the printing plant to read the issue as it came in and make some “astute” bets on Friday based on BusinessWeek tips and thoughts (especially mergers), and then cash out on Tuesdays. The front-running scam went on for quite a while, as I recall, until one day the Feds caught wise and broke it up.
I mention this because the current issue of BusinessWeek has ZERO mention of SVB Bank. Not a single word. There is a short squib on their “last minute” page where they generally print timely things like covid stats or whatever, and they note that “Silvergate says it will wind down operations and loiquidate its bank after the crypto industry’s meltdown. It’s the first US bank failure since 2020, the first year of the pandemic according to the FDIC’s website.”
Biggest financial story of the year, probably, and they missed it. It happened on Friday, and by Monday government officials had “solved” the problem (I make a joke) - that’s how fast it all went down. Crazy!
