What’s wrong with the banks

This week I was struck by a sense of déjà vu. I was living in Washington, DC during the financial crisis of 2007-09, overseeing The Economist’s global economics coverage. And I once again happened to be in America for another banking collapse as Silicon Valley Bank went bust, sending shock waves through markets. The scale is different, as is the cause. This time rising interest rates have left the banks exposed. But much of what unfolded over the past week was familiar: the sense of uncertainty, the panicked wait ahead of the authorities’ intervention—and a situation that is worse than initially imagined. Banking crises are always frightening. Our cover leader in most of the world this week explains what went wrong and offers suggestions for how the financial system can be made safer. Our cover in the Middle East and Africa asks whether Bibi will break Israel. The country faces a constitutional crisis. Hundreds of thousands of angry citizens have taken to the streets, furious that their prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is trying to neuter the Supreme Court. That would allow him—or any future leader with a majority in the Knesset—to rule with hardly any checks or balances. We look at what the consequences of this might be for the Middle’s East’s only successful democracy. Zanny Minton Beddoes Editor-in-chief The Economist