Notes today:

• Banks F*****Up regularly  – you can count on it! Same old movie different actors..

• Regulators took over California-based Silicon Valley Bank on Friday in the second-biggest bank failure in US history. 
• "There is never just one cockroach in the kitchen" Warren Buffett
• Stablecoin (“stablecoins“  hilariously named) giant Circle Internet Financial Ltd said $3.3 billion of its about $40 billion of USD Coin reserves remain at Silicon Valley Bank...
• USDC's normally stable price sank to $0.89 from $1 while Ethereum gas fees soared hours after the crypto-tied bank failed.
• The ramifications of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis have spread to Sweden. SVB's plunge wiped out more than half of the value of the holdings that Alecta — Sweden's largest pension fund — had in the bank.

• Russia: The life expectancy for young men is now as low as for men in Haiti—and lower than in Bangladesh. (Economist) 

• China hiked its defense budget by 7.2 per cent, marginally higher than last year, to 1.55 trillion yuan (about USD 225 billion), marking the eighth consecutive year of increase in its military spending. China is the second biggest spender on defense next to the US whose defense budget for 2023 totaled USD 816 billion.