EPS 14 - Banks Fail from Bad Risk, Not Pride Flags

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SPEAKER_00: 1:09

I'm Jerry and this is the Pink Money Podcast where we talk about all about things related to money from a gay perspective. And you know what? I covered Silicon Valley Bank's, you know, failure in the last episode. But, you know, I was doing a little bit more reading and something caught my attention which was kind of disturbing to me. And I guess the reason that I really disliked it so much is because You know, it came from someone who I think should know better, right? And I guess not. That's the bottom line. Because they wouldn't say things like this if they really knew what they were talking about and if it really was something that they cared about. So in this case... This comment came from Bernie Marcus, and for those who don't know who he is, he is the former CEO and co-founder of the Home Depot. The Home Depot has had lots of problems when dealing with him because he spouts a lot of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. And in this case, what he said was, you know, hey, the bank's failure, Silicon Valley Bank, their failure was It's really related to the fact that they were embracing this woke culture and including all this diversity, etc. And I'm paraphrasing, but all this diversity programs, etc. that they initiated from the bank. And if they were paying closer attention to the bank and, you know, their portfolio, that probably it wouldn't have happened. So, you know, what that's really saying is the fact that diversity and, you know, just being socially aware apparently is antithetical to him. And when you really think about it, this is the kind of comments that really don't belong anywhere, especially when you're talking about business, because just because you put a pride flag up in your place of business and you, you know, put some posters and maybe you encourage anybody who wants to participate in pride month you know to stand up and be counted and be able to take some small amount of pride in who you are that apparently that's a bad thing so When you think about this bank, that didn't cause the bank's failure. Not at all. No way in hell did putting up pride flags or selling pride merchandise or anything related to that have anything whatsoever to do with this bank's failure. What he should be saying, and anybody else who is talking about this kind of crap, is the fact that the bank in and of itself created their own problems. They are the ones that did not diversify their portfolio. They're the ones that decided that they were gonna continue lending massive amounts of money to these startups in Silicon Valley. And that's not a problem in and of itself. But again, like I said before, when you put all your eggs in one basket, guess what's gonna happen? You're gonna have problems. That's what's gonna happen. And in that sense, any situation when you think about it can take down your portfolio, your business, anything, because you have too much concentrated in one area. So this bank, they should have a risk management officer and that person should be responsible for reviewing what the bank is invested in, how much exposure they have to a certain area, and then making the recommendations to change that. And the CEO, the board of directors should all be listening and should be making those adjustments. Because if you're running a bank and a huge financial institution like that, then you would want to make sure that you're not exposing the bank to a disrupt the entire business and take it under, which in this case it did. And what also is very disturbing is the fact that the CEO and other members of the executive staff sold massive amounts of their stock prior to this entire debacle with the business going under. Now, if that doesn't sound suspicious enough, come on so they knew well in advance that they were in trouble and selling your stock beforehand is that is probably one of the worst crimes that you could commit when you are running a company because the other people who don't share that same information don't have the ability to do what you just did and dump their stock and that also creates another problem for many many companies and including the stock market in general What I'm saying is, if let's say there is some situation that occurs. that starts to spook investors and they want to start dumping stock they generally kind of panic and do it all at once which is the worst thing to do because all that's going to do is drive the stock down in price so you want to always buy low sell high in that case when your stock is tanking that's the worst time to sell your stock so what you want to do is sell it when it's high so if you're going to sell massive amounts of stock you have to generally time it and and you sell it gradually over time and you liquidate your portfolio in a manner that doesn't spook the market and alert other investors of that company that, hey, you know what? If he's dumping his stock, he must know something I don't know. And you know what? Maybe I should do that too. Now, a lot of people follow what publicly traded stock is being sold and by whom. And generally, if there is is, you know, the executive suite, the C-suite of a business that starts selling their shares, then, again, that could be a very good indicator that something's going wrong. There's nothing wrong with, hey, you know, I want to liquidate... I want to liquidate some of my stock because I'm holding way too much of it. Just like I said, if all your eggs in one basket, you don't want to hold that basket. You want to hold multiple baskets. So yes, selling a bunch of your stock and diversifying your portfolio, yes, that is a good thing. That is something that you should do. And that is not suspicious. And if you do it in a fashion that doesn't alarm anybody, then that's not going to be a problem. In this case, I hope the SEC is going to look a lot more closely at these guys and say, you know what? You had insider information that the rest of the public didn't have. Therefore, what you just sold is all being clawed back. You're not going to be able to benefit by this. In fact, you should go to jail for what you're doing. Now, I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do. I hope they do something like that. But, you know, we can all think back to little Martha Stewart. You know, when she had insider information and she traded on it, what happened to Miss Martha Stewart? her she went to jail that's what happened so anybody who's trading on non-public information then you have committed a crime of insider trading and insider trading is not legal because again the rest of the market does not share that same information only you do and a few of your cronies and you should not be able to profit on that So I'm kind of ranting here and I'm getting a little bit sidetracked. But the problem, like I said, going back to describing the reasons that Silicon Valley Bank tanked is not because they're woke. It's not because their diversity was the main thing that the bank was focused on. It has nothing to do with that whatsoever. Because you know what? The CEO and the rest of the executives were not spending seven days a week, five days a week, three days a week, They were not spending all their time working on how we can increase pride in that bank. They were not. No way. Now, maybe they had a diversity officer who that was part of their job, you know, to... find out how they can bring pride into the bank to make the bank employees feel more open, accepted, welcomed, and saying to the rest of the public, hey, we are a company that is concerned about social justice, and because it matters to our employees, it matters to our customers, it matters to us. And that is extremely important. And always support any business or people that do exactly that. Because we know that there is so much discrimination out there against LGBTQ++ people, we don't need any more hate. We need more supporters. And there's tons of hate going around these days. You only have to look so far as to Tennessee and see that, you know what, they are spending a bunch of their time finding ways that they can discriminate against people by simply even banning drag shows. My God, a drag show. A drag show. So you're saying that a drag show is going to corrupt children. What on God's green earth... are you talking about? Never have I seen a drag show in all my years, and I'm turning 61 this year, and never have I seen a drag show that panders to children. Never have I seen children being groomed by drag queens in all those almost every circumstance where a child is being preyed upon it's by someone that this kid knows or the family knows and has invited them into their world it's usually someone in the family or a very close family friend it certainly isn't going to be a drag queen who's performing in a public venue in some gay bar that is going to be the perfect perpetrator of molesting some kid. No way in hell. That is not happening. And for any pervert who's actually in the Tennessee legislature, then probably you're the one that you're committing these crimes. And if you really want to protect children, yes, you should be banning the number one most harmful thing that kills children, which is guns. Okay? Guns do it. And I always hear, well, you know, the gun didn't kill, you know, the kid or the person. You know, it was the person who Yes, but if they didn't have access to the gun, it would not have happened. The kid that steals the gun out of mom and dad's closet and takes it to school and shoots everybody up, guess what? Yes, that gun did a lot of damage. And you can go on and on and on with many, many, many examples of this. But again, grooming does not happen in any gay bar. Children are not in any gay bar that I've ever been to unless it's like some special event where it's open to the public. And then in that case, never have I seen people walking naked, half naked, you know, trying to saddle up to children. And what children child is there without their parent? None. None. None, none, none, none, none. No kid is showing up without their parents, okay? It is not happening. Same thing with a kid going to a drag queen story hour at the public library. Again, this is a public library. You think some grooming is taking place in a public library? Hell no, it's not taking place in a public library. Just because you wear makeup and a wig and heels does not make you a sexual deviant, okay? I'm sorry. How many people, how many gay men have been in drag? Thousands, thousands. That does not make them groomer. You know, I... Who hasn't even done drag? I mean, I think almost every gay man has done drag at some point in his life. Hell, I mean, I did drag back in 1995 when I won Miss Gay Colorado, and I did it for seven years, I think. Can't even remember. It's been so long. But... Again, never have I ever seen anything remotely like that. And in fact, I think I saw a story most recently about a librarian who scrawled groomer across the library doors. And guess what? Lo and behold, they ended up raiding this character's home. And guess what he has on his laptop? Child porn. Guess where that dude is right now? jail where he belongs so now are they going after those kind of people no are they going after the clergy who's definitely been abusing children no are they going after you know all these other people and venues where kids get exposed to creeps no so they're going after some soft target which they think is going to be easy for them to discriminate against well I think I have some news for you buddy Going to discriminate against the LGBTQ++ community is not going to be as easy as you think. Lots and lots of people are standing up, speaking their minds, and many drag queens like Jinx Monsoon and I've seen Della Creme de la Creme. I think I messed that up. But I even saw RuPaul. She put a video out. Well, all I'm saying is all these... Ben de la Creme. Thank you. That's what it is. Yes. So, yes. Sorry, Ben. I messed that up. Anyway, what I'm saying is... These queens are not going to be quiet. They don't deserve to have this hate directed at them. And we know way back in 1968 when Stonewall occurred that, you know, Sylvia Rodriguez was up in the front lines and they were throwing the first bricks at the police because they were being discriminated against and they had enough. Well, that might be where we're at today. I don't know. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it wouldn't surprise me if it happens. But anyway, getting a little sidetracked. All I'm saying is being a woke organization or woke person is number one, not a bad thing. And secondly, it is not the kind of situation that would any way, shape or form be a cause to bring down a bank. No, no, no, no, no, no. That is not happening. Never has, never will. And unless that company, like I said, spends all of their time, and we're talking thousands of employees that are all focused on one thing, creating a Pride Month celebration. Give me a break. That's not happening, okay? It's ridiculous. Well, anyway, that is my rant for the day. I hope that you all have a great day. Don't believe in this crap. Don't take this crap. And definitely stand up for yourself and others because everybody has to support the LGBTQ plus community. We're big, but we're small. And we are definitely, as we all know, targets. And we don't need any more hate directed at us than we already have. And everybody band together, support each other, love each other, and hey, call out people who are creeps and weirdos and perverts and hate mongers like this Bernie Marcus. Thank God he's not the CEO of Home Depot anymore. I think it was like 15 years ago. But why they keep bringing and trotting him out is beyond my imagination because he has nothing positive to offer and he just needs to go into retirement, stay there, and shut his hole. So anyway, you all have a great day. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you next time. I'm going to be taking you out with a little Heather Small. It's a remix by Josh Harris. Take it easy.