In an article detailing a new high in inflation published in the New York Times on January 13th, 2022, the authors explained how inflation “climbed to its highest level in 40 years at the end of 2021, a troubling development for economic policy-makers as rapid price gains erode consumer confidence,” casting “a shadow of uncertainty over the economy’s future.”

At the time, the New York Times, noted how the Consumer Price Index rose 7 percent in the year, eclipsing the last time the main inflation index reached that percent in 1982. By the time the year reached June, the Consumer Price Index rose to no less than 9.1 %. At the time the annual inflation rate stood at an unadjusted 7.1%, the highest 12-month change since June of 1982.

Throughout the past four decades, the FEDs have adjusted the interest rate according to inflation. However, the FED’s intervention into the economy has not resulted in the resolution of any of the contradictions fueling the crises happening throughout the economy. In a comparison of data from the 1970s to the present day, the FED’s intervention appears to do little but delay, obstruct or impede—at great cost to collapsing banks—the crises, which re-appear with frequent regularity, despite successively increasing the interest rates.

In his Leon Trotksy’s introduction to The Essential Marx he states how “the need of salvation from these partial catastrophes by means of tariff walls, inflation, increase of government spending, and debts lays the ground for additional, deeper and more widespread crisis.”

In a noteworthy crescendo of the uncertainty mentioned above in the New York Times, which is none other than a partial catastrophe, no less than three Californian banks, Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic, have collapsed since March 7th, 2023 but the “additional, deeper and more widespread crisis” appears to be on the horizon.

The catalyst for this horizon may be none other than the end of PacWest Bancorp. PacWest Bancorp, whose affinity with California aligns with the other banks as headquartered in the State, remains on the verge of collapse.

In the most recent reflection of a breakdown in the economy is a drop in PacWest Bancorp’s stock by a percentage greater than 23% on Thursday after the PacWest Bancorp disclosed in a security filing another round of deposit flights resulting in the loss of more than 9.5% of its total deposits.

The stock market halted trading on the PacWest stock several times because of volatile trading, likely in options where traders are allowed to make profits betting up or down, as the stock rises and falls rapidly in a feeding frenzy reminiscent of defensively meat in a pool piranhas.

In an article entitled, “PacWest Bancorp’s Imminent Demise Shows Bank Turmoil Is Widening To Smaller Banks,” the author presents an airtight prediction for PacWest Bancorp’s imminent demise.

PacWest Bancorp “imminent demise” is the result of and rooted in inflation. With interest rates at nearly zero, cheap, if not altogether free, money began to circulate rapidly, while “regional banks,” whose customer bank immediate began to pander to wealthy depositors, sought to curry favor with nearly zero, cheap, if not altogether free mortgages. After the Feds began to raise rates, the “regional bank’s” business model began to confront the harsh reality of the market.

In her article, Maya Rodriguez Valladares offers a series of data sets specifically tailored to display the similarities PacWest Bancorp maintains in regards to previously collapsed banks, Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic, whose collapse signaled the reemergence of the “regional banking crisis” after bankers assured the public that the crisis had ended.

There are essentially three datasets of import. 1) While Maya Rodriguez Valladares states, all three had very significant asset growth in a very brief period of time,” the period is essentially tied to the FED’s policy of zero interest rates during that period of time. These almost zero interest rates are often described as the “Covid 19 pandemic interest rates,” as they corresponded with the Covid 19 crisis (which continues to report deaths in the amount of no less than 1,000 people a month as per the New York Times). PacWest Bancorp’s assets grew by 58% from 2019 to 2022. Silicon Valley Bank’s assets grew 64%. First Republic’s Assets grew by 84%.

Since the three banks saw their assets grow within the period in which the FED’s had significantly decreased the interest rates, their rapid growth may essentially be a result of the FED’s regulatory policy.

Secondly, Silicon Valley Bank’s Deposits grew by 182%, PacWest Bancorp’s assets grew by 77%. First Republic’s assets grew by 96%. These rapid rises correspond closely with the FED’s policy of asset purchases. The FED terminated its asset purchasing programing shortly before the Silvergate collapsed.

In her conclusion Rodriguez Valladares’ notes that nothing short of a miracle would return the more than 90% PacWest Bancorp’s share has lost since March, 2023.

In light of Rodriguez’s analysis, there is little to nothing one may cite as a legitimate reason to believe that PacWest Bancorp is anything less than on the verge of collapse. It is—for all accounts and purposes—a dead bank transacting. With less than 10 percent of the share value it maintained prior to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, there does not appear to be an objective force capable of returning its share values.

There is, however, another prospective catalyst. While simultaneously, the Ukraine war is one of the factors contributing to Bancorp West’s rapid, “imminent demise.”In an article published on its front page on March 11th, 2022, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the New York Times remarked how “Prices climbed at the fastest pace in decades in the month lead ing up to the war in

In no more than month’s time after the New York Times published its article on the rise in inflation in January, “The Consumer Price Index rose by 7.9 percent through February, the fastest pace of annual inflation in 40 years.”

“Underlining the high stakes facing the United States — along with many developed economies — as the conflict promises to drive costs higher,” the article continued. The conflict, which the Times, did not mention specifically is none other than the Ukraine war.

With hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, millions displaced as refugees, Ukraine’s economy laid to waste, the impact of the Ukraine war is hardly confined to its national borders, as the rise in the Consumer Price Index at that time indicated with its sudden ascent. The sudden ascent in inflation—the fastest pace in 40 years—evidences the global havoc Ukraine’s devastating death agony is wreaking on the world economy. It could be that the Ukraine war may provide the catalyst for “additional, deeper and more widespread crisis.”

At the time these numbers were reported, President. Biden acknowledged the pain consumers were feeling from rapid inflation “but pointed a finger at President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, blaming his invasion of Ukraine for fueling higher gas prices.”

In March, 2022, however, President Biden’s list of Presidential Drawdowns (visible from a document entitled, U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine, Table 1. Presidential Drawdowns for Ukraine FY2021-FY2023), the relevant investment neared less than $610 million dollars at the time the New York Times published its article on the sudden rise of inflation after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.

In contrast to the amounts drawndown in 2022,, the overall funding for the Ukraine war up to the present date is now more than $150,000,000,000, an unprecedented sum of money. The war, which evokes comparisons with World Wars I and II, already a human catastrophe. These sums of money appear as a manifestation of Washington’s commitment to perpetuating the war. These sums of money, which are approaching nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars, are no less the result of the panicked frenzy with which Washington perceives the future solution to its existential crisis collapsing, as Ukrainian armed forces continue to lose city after city (i.e., Kherson, Mariupol, Bakhmut).

While President Biden may have sought to fool people in early March, 2022, his presidential drawdowns, however, confound any attempt to portray the Ukraine war through the personalist narrative deriving the ultimate cause of the war form a Vladimir Putin.” A personalist narrative is deficient for lack of the underlying cause of the war.

Although instigated by the United States, the Putin regime, whose disastrous decision to invade provided for the other narrative of an “unprovoked war,” is responding not to the instigation of the United States but now pursuing its own aims. The real causes of the crisis lie not within a personalized narrative attributing the war’s cause to Biden’s desire for regime change, or, rather, no less to Putin’s desire to ensure the security of his position within the wealthy ruling elite of Russia’s autocracy but within the breakdown in the world capitalist system, where nation states must compete for dominance in an increasingly globalized economy.

The United States, whose aim it is to expand its influence over the Russian landmass to offset its own decline, aims to supplant with the Putin regime with puppets subservient not to the interests of the Russian working people—whom the oligarchs under Putin’s regime exploit as cannon fodder to ensure a continued right to exploit Russia’s deposits of gas, metals, or minerals—but to Washington. Evidence of Washington’s desire to expand its influence over Russia stretches as far back as to John F Kennedy, who wrote a special treatise on the subject of NATO called, “A Strategy for Peace,” where the Darker Side of Camelot means nothing less than continuous wars of conquest.