Michael Hiltzik: Love it or hate it, the Silicon Valley Bank bailout won't cost taxpayers a cent

What's the dirtiest word in financial policy?

My vote goes to "bailout." The term evokes giveaways to the most undeserving of fat cats, people who accept "responsibility" for financial crises as long as that doesn't involve punishment.

Bailouts exemplify the long dishonorable principle of privatizing profits and socializing losses — that is, we're going to mulct the consumer for every cent of black ink but stick it to the taxpayer when our own mistakes put us in a hole.

The perennial issue has bubbled up again in connection with the government response in recent weeks to the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

In those cases, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. acted to guarantee the full deposit accounts of the banks' customers even beyond its standard insurance limit of $250,000 per depositor. As it happened, the vast majority of deposits at both banks — 88% at SVB and 90% at Signature, according to the FDIC — were in accounts exceeding that limit.

That's the aspect of the bank rescues that has drawn the focus of their critics, who demand