The financial panic that began with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank introduced us to an odd phrase for such a sterile, suburban-backdrop event: being made whole.
Being made whole is an outcome people expect from lovers—naively as it turns out, at least according to songs. What really plucks the heartstrings is not that the people desired often fail to honor this expectation but the way in which those doing the desiring confront reality. This is what reroutes the Love Train into the self-help aisle.
But in regard to banks, whose idea was it to describe a failed bank’s large depositors holding on to every last cent as being “made whole”? Does the simple fact of having assets make you, as an entity, deserve to be whole? I might buy that concept if all depositors were people, but they’re not.
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