Silicon Valley Bank: A Bedtime Story

Once Upon a Time, there was a beautiful valley, filled with puffy clouds and pixie dust. The people who lived in the valley were also filled with big ideas, just as big as their big puffy clouds in the sky.

People from outside the valley gave them lots of money to help them make their big dreams come true. And the people in the valley put this money in their bank.

But the bank needed to make money too. 

So the bank made a deal with the King and Queen of the entire nation. The King and Queen told the bank of the valley that if they could borrow the money to use in their kingdom, they would give the bank extra money every year. But the deal was that the King and Queen got to keep their money for 20 years. The only way the bank could get their money back early would be if they could find a Prince to trade with them and give them their money back in exchange for the Prince honoring their deal with the King and Queen until the 20 years was up.

This sounded like a great plan. And so the bank agreed. Everyone lived happily ever after for many years until....

One day, something happened. 

The King and Queen decided to make more deals with lots of other people in the nation, but this time they would pay them much more money every year than they had agreed to pay the valley of the bank. At the same time, the ideas of the valley people kept getting bigger and puffier, and so they needed more and more money from their bank. But when they went to get their money from the bank, they couldn't get it! This was because the bank had given it to the King and Queen.

The bank needed its money back and in a hurry. It needed to find a Prince to trade with. But every Prince told the bank the same thing, "Why would I trade with you? The King and Queen have made deals with others. And they pay the others so much more. I will just trade with them instead." So the bank was in big trouble. 

One day the bank met a Wizard. And the Wizard said, "I will trade with you. But your money is not worth the same as everyone else's because your money does not make as much money from the King and Queen. Therefore I will only give you some of the money you gave to the King and Queen." The bank of the valley had no choice but to make a deal with the Wizard.

But once they made the deal, this meant that they had much less money in their bank than the people of the valley had given to them. The people of the valley heard of the deal with the Wizard and were very upset. "How could you give away our money?! We want it back!"

So the people of the valley all went to the bank and demanded their money back. But the bank didn't have enough money. 

The bank gave the people all the money it had but it wasn't enough. The King and Queen felt bad for what they had done and promised the people of the valley they would give them the rest of the money they were owed. But they didn't have the money either. 

So the King and Queen reached up into their puffy clouds and magically, money came from the sky in a big gust of inflationary wind. The owners of the bank went to Hawaii. And no one in the nation knew exactly what would happen next…

The End.