Irish Examiner view: Banks and tech firms get the jitters

Silicon Valley Bank's failure will cause pessimists among us to recall the way the financial crisis of 2008 unfolded

Flashback to January 22, 2008, and passers-by scarcely seem to notice the financial market display screen in London as billions were wiped off the value of stocks worldwide. File picture: Cate Gillon/Getty

There is a hoary old saying in financial circles, that “when America sneezes the world catches a cold”. It’s an expression that has been doing the rounds since the Wall Street crash of 1929, but has lost little of its resonance.

Those of us with a pessimistic mien will have watched this weekend’s collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and remember the straws in the wind earlier this century which preceded the Great Austerity, the consequences of which are still with us today, made more entrenched by the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine. We will be keeping our fingers crossed.