The Money Pit: President Biden yesterday pledged that losses incurred by failed banks in the past week will not be borne by the taxpayers and that the managers of the banks, Silicon Valley Bank the biggest in question, will be fired. 

  “Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” Biden said. Your deposits will be there when you need them.”

  Biden and the administration are fighting off lost confidence in banks, which could lead to disaster.

  But one of the reasons the banks failed is that executives and the entire banking industry fought for loosening regulations imposed after the 2008 banking crisis.  Greg Becker, the chief executive of Silicon Valley Bank, was one of the executives who won concessions from Congress in 2018

  So far Silicon Valley, Signature, and Silvergate banks have failed, the latter after sinking money into the fantasy investment of cryptocurrency.  The impact hit across the stock market yesterday, and especially in the regional banks. They took such a dive that trading was halted in as many as 20 of them. First Republic Bank and Western Alliance Bancorporation dropped by more than  50 percent. Stocks in Europe also dropped. 

  Bank regulators have promised that depositors at Silicon Valley Bank will have access to their money, but losses will be absorbed by investors and the banking industry. Massachusetts Sen. Elizbeth Warren is doubtful, writing in The NY Times, “It’s no wonder the American people are skeptical of a system that holds millions of struggling student loan borrowers in limbo but steps in overnight to ensure that billion-dollar crypto firms won’t lose a dime in deposits.”

The War Room: Russian forces have been attacking along a 160-mile curve along the eastern front possibly trying to soften the ground for a big spring offensive. It appears to be happening at a frightening cost in lives as fighters charge at Ukrainian machine guns.

  Russia’s private Wagner Group is taking a beating as it fights for a few feet of ground in the city of Bakhmut. “Wagner’s assault units are advancing from several directions, trying to break through the defenses of our troops and advance to the central districts of the city,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, said in a statement. “In the course of fierce battles, our defenders inflict significant losses on the enemy.”  

  Despite its bravado, Ukraine is running short on well-trained and experienced soldiers. Western estimates put Ukrainian dead and wounded at 120,000 after a year of war. They are also running short of critical artillery shells and basic ammunition.

Penalty Kick: The big uproar in Britain these days has been the BBC’s suspension of wildly popular soccer host Gary Lineker for his comments criticizing the British government’s new asylum policy.

  Many of Lineker’s fellow hosts refused to go to work over the weekend, forcing the BBC to scramble to fill its programming. The lunchtime television show “Football Focus” was replaced with a rerun of the antiques show “Bargain Hunt,” and the early evening “Final Score” was replaced with “The Repair Shop.”

  Yesterday, the BBC folded and agreed to put Lineker back on the air.

  His offense had been that he posted a tweet describing the government’s plan to detain and deport migrants arriving by boat as “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.”

  The BBC said Lineker had violated its rules of journalistic neutrality, but he’s a soccer host, not a presenter of the evening news. Over there, that’s a bigger job.

The Obit Page: Dick Fosbury, the high jumper who revolutionized the track and field event by going over the bar backwards in what became known as the “Fosbury Flop,” has died of lymphoma at age 76. He won gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics at a height of 7 feet 4¼ inches.

  High jumpers traditionally transferred their weight upwards with a scissor kick and went over chest to the bar. Fosbury discovered that turning his back at the last moment allowed for a greater upwards transference of weight and momentum. When he first jumped at the Olympics, spectators laughed until he was the last man jumping.

  The current Olympic record of 7 feet 10 inches was set in 1996 by Charles Austin, who did it with a Fosbury Flop. 

The Spin Rack: President Biden and the leaders of Australia and Britain announced the sale of American nuclear-powered attack submarines to the land down under amid growing concern about China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. The first subs would be delivered in the 2030s in a deal worth $245 billion by 2055. This is a reaction to the growing military might of China. — The Biden administration has approved a massive oil drilling project in Alaska that opponents have denounced as a “carbon bomb.” The project will include more than 200 wells spread out from drilling pads while requiring miles of pipelines and roads.— The man inspired by the Islamic State who drove down a Central Park bike path killing eight people has been sentenced to life in prison in New York. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been released from a hospital to a physical rehab center to recover from a concussion and cracked rib. The 81-year old tripped and fell at a dinner last week.

Below the Fold: Former President Donald Trump told reporters yesterday that Mike Pence is to blame for the January 6^th insurrection because he refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

  “Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn’t have had a problem with Jan. 6, so in many ways you can blame him for Jan. 6.”

  In other words, if Pence had illegally overturned the election, it would not have been necessary for Trump’s followers to try to overthrow the government.