On Tuesday, March 28, the US Senate held hearings on the swift collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th largest bank in the US. By late last year, it had assets of about $209 billion. SVB's collapse, the second largest bank failure in US history, sent shock waves through the financial system worldwide. Fears and doubt were compounded by the failures of Silvergate and Signature Banks in the US, and the acquisition of Switzerland's troubled Credit Suisse by cross-town rival UBS. Another challenged US bank, First Republic, raised the stakes. DICK BOVE, chief financial strategist at ODEON CAPITAL GROUP, followed the Senate hearings closely, and sees banking changes ahead. He has sympathy for the lawmakers who said Federal regulators dropped the ball.

"This [SVB collapse] is something the Federal Reserve is going to have to answer for," he says. BOVE also has his own questions about what happened at SVB from ignoring regulators' warnings to the propriety of bonuses paid at SVB. Regulations will now be tightened in multiple areas of the banking sector, according to BOVE. Meanwhile, MAT VAN ALSTYNE, ODEON co-founder and managing partner, warns that the US may be in a so-called Minksy Moment, the end stages of an extended phase of economic prosperity that propels investors and consumers to take on excessive risk, leading eventually to a financial and economic disaster. Host JOHN AIDAN BYRNE raises the spectre of moral hazard, the slippery slope of endless rounds of bailouts and the consequent and dire threats to the foundations of the free enterprise system in America.

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