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John C Morley (00:10):
Hi everyone. I'm John C Morley, the host of the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW and Inspirations for Your Life.
John C Morley (01:02):
Hey guys, it is John C Morley here, serial entrepreneur. Welcome to the JMOR Tech Talk Show. I can't believe it. Friends, we are in the second week of March, which is March 10th today, 2023. We got another amazing show for you guys. But if you want to learn more about all my great stuff, just scan that QR code with your phone or go to believemeachieve.com. You can check out more JMOR episodes. You can catch the IFYL podcast and also learn when I'll be live on WTBQ Radio. And we're also working on expanding around the metro area and the United States. So definitely keep abreast of that. All right, so we got so much to talk about today. The first thing I want to get right into is the US seeks closer India tech ties.
John C Morley (01:53):
Closers India tech ties to coupling the US Commerce Secretary. And you know, this is interesting. India could now become a key supplier of our electronic parts and hardware for the United States. The US Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, said recently that Washington was not seeking a technological decoupling from China. Then why are we doing this? I know, I have concerns about this because whenever we have people that support us from these other countries, they can barely get enough English out so we can even understand the context of what they're saying. And when they end every statement like, I'll help you with that one, I'm going to check on this one. It's so frustrating. And so the thing that has me over a barrel is, you know, why are we doing this? Now, India has been seeking to attract more investment in the chip-making and display sector under their 10 billion incentive plan.
John C Morley (03:04):
And last year, the government said it would cover 50% of the project costs of new social semiconductor facilities. Raimondo, who was a leading delegation including executives from 10 US companies, said India's ambitions to expand its tech sectors were, and I quote, totally aligned with the United States's desire and goal to make our supply chain more resilient, close quote. She also said, quote, substantial investments, quote, by the US firms in India without giving any details. And she's going to announce those. I guess we're going to have to see what's going on. I don't trust them at all. So, we're going to have to just sit tight and see what their plans are because, frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not in love with this. We need to be a country that produces our own stuff, right? We couldn't even get chips for cars a couple of years ago.
John C Morley (04:08):
And some other news, which we'll hear a little bit later, is that a major bank closed. We'll talk about that later. So, what's going on, ladies and gentlemen? Is our world falling apart, or are our people just trying to run anything up the flagpole and hope it's going to fly? I think it's the latter one. Our world is not falling apart, but people are getting impatient to take their ideas their aspirations, run them up the flagpole and say, Hey, does this stick? Does this not fly? And hoping that nine out of 10 times, the flag's going to fly. We'll have to just keep an eye out for what's going on with that. But stay tuned because I don't know what the US is doing, but I'm a little nervous about them partnering with India. I'm just not totally in love with that. All right, well, Sony and Nintendo halted game shipping to Russia. And so, this is interesting, ladies and gentlemen, Sony's halted game shipping to Russia. So, Sony's group corporation game division and Nintendo Company Limited said, and I quote, they have suspended shipments of software and hardware to Russia following the invasion of Ukraine close.
John C Morley (05:32):
So, Sony Interactive Entertainment that's Sony Interactive Entertainment, which makes the PlayStation five console said, I quote, it has suspended the launch of the racing game Grand Turismo 7 and operations of the PlayStation store in Russia, close quote. So is this a ploy to try to blackmail Russia? I don't know. They claim that they're doing this because of considerable volatility surrounding the logistics of shipping and distributing physical goods. I don't believe them. I think it has to do with the war. And I think this is a power play. Not that that's a bad thing, but I don't know if it's going to do what they expect. It might backfire in their face, right? We all know that it has a thread of a military, let's say, see to it. That's inevitable. And just not too long ago, Nintendo put its ESHOP under maintenance in Russia after its pant provider suspended transactions in the Russian troubles. So they're having lots of issues over there in Russia. And so, the question you might be asking yourself is, will Nintendo ever release shipments to Russia?
John C Morley (07:12):
And right now, I don't think we have an answer to that. Of course, they can always pop at any time they want. Is Amazon going to pull out of Russia? Amazon says, and I quote, it is stopping shipping products sold on its retail website to customers based in Russia and cutting off access to its video streaming services there. close quote. So it seems like they're pulling out too, but they're not blocking customers that are selling to Russia. It's just things sold and shipped by Amazon. And Disney pulled out of Russia on March 1st. So you know, I think they're hoping to send a message.
John C Morley (08:04):
Of course, we know that Apple doesn't operate any physical stores in Russia anymore. How about Netflix? Netflix is brought blocked in Russia too. The way people access Netflix in Russia is to use a VPN. How about HBO? Did they pull out? Well, the company's Russian presence goes back 30 years. And BP Ross Neff's strategic partnership dates back more than two decades. So, BP's February decision to exit Russia meant that Mr. Looney and former CEO Bob Dudley immediately resigned from Ross Neff's board, on which both represented BP. That's very interesting. Can I ship a phone to Russia? The short answer is yes. And you can ship the iPhone to Russia and it will work. But again, there are no stores over there. So who else do we have left? Is Starbucks going to pull out OF Russia? Well, Starbucks announced that it would exit the Russian market, joining such corporate giants that have already pulled out, like McDonald's, ExxonMobil, and Netflix, over the invasion of Ukraine.
John C Morley (09:22):
This is interesting. You know, is this really going to matter to Russia? I don't think so. I think it's just a drop in the bucket for them. But we're hoping somewhere that it's going to do something, and they're really making a statement. That's what they're doing. But what's going to happen? We'll have to just sit and wait because they're hoping this will make major changes. I think we're just going to get some people aggravated, and people are just going to go to other places. I mean, they could stream movies from all over the internet. Why would they have to go to Netflix? Right? And they could buy movies online, or some people are stealing movies, unfortunately, online. And they're saying that you know, YouTube's certain things, will we block? But, you know, they could obviously just VPN to that, right? But what's really going on? Is the war in Ukraine ever going to be over? Is the war in Ukraine ever going to end?
John C Morley (10:32):
You know, people asked this question months ago, okay, it's ongoing, and I know it's costing both sides lots of money. But what is it really going to take for Russia to just stop? Some people are saying it's probably another year. Cause that's all they can hang on to financially. Both armies have really had some very serious staggering losses. It's really a hard time. And it's affecting not only the people, but the businesses, the trade, the commerce, and the companies that were potentially doing business in these areas. So there's a lot going on there. And the question I want to ask is, you know, what does Russia want? And the war?
John C Morley (11:50):
I think Russia just wants control. Russia has a list of some very unreasonable demands, I'm sure. They include, they're not limited to, Ukraine's recognition of Russian-occupied Crimea's independence for separate tests controlled by Lutanists and Donatists and demilitarization and denazification. It's interesting. I mean, unfortunately, I think Ukraine was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and this war was going to happen, even if it didn't happen this year. It might have happened next year or a few years down the road, but universities and theorists worldwide are asking, how will the war end?
John C Morley (12:46):
That's the multi-billion dollar question. How and when? This war is really about the Russian's military illegal seizure. Okay? And you know, they thought that just by doing this, everyone would step down. But Ukraine is a very tough country. And so I feel that even some people in Russia are starting to give these people kudos because some of the people in Russia are embarrassed, but they won't say it publicly that a country like theirs would be going after Ukraine when these people are barely able to put food on their table. So, we'll have to see what happens with that, ladies and gentlemen. But it's going to be interesting what's going on. And Facebook allows war posts urging violence against Russian invaders. What the heck is this all about, guys? I thought they were always about, you know, keeping things very non-war-like.
John C Morley (14:00):
Well, as of today, META platforms, Facebook, will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to international emails seen by routers, and I quote. The question is, why? And I have to say that there's got to be money in it. Unfortunately, there's got to be money in it because we know that Facebook doesn't just make rules because they want to make rules. Their rules are tied to some monetary gain for them or a partner that they're heavy, let's say, sleeping with, okay? And by that, I mean really invested with, or that they're investing them with their capital. So, I think that's the, the name of the game, and we're just going to have to sit tight and see what's going to go on. But I can tell you this, ladies and gentlemen, what's going on right now? And the way Facebook's going to allow this, I think it's setting a double standard.
John C Morley (15:12):
Facebook will now allow this. Facebook will allow war posts, and they're saying temporarily allows posts in the Ukraine war. So it means they could pull it back anytime they want. See, this has me concerned because now you're saying it's okay for us to go to war. Now we all know that this is not an easy time for anybody and going to war about it. Well, that's terrible. And the fact that Facebook and Meta are actually saying, Hey, you know, you could do whatever you want within reason for a limited time, but how long is that limited time? That limited time might be forever. We all know that they make rules, okay? I knew somebody that had an issue with one of their features, and I'm sure you have known someone like that too. It took months for them to fix the feature. A feature that prevented someone I knew from getting paid from their platform that's absolutely terrible.
John C Morley (16:22):
And the number of complaints he had to put through before they actually fixed it took him two to three months to fix the issue. See, that's just garbage. That is just garbage. But, you know, they do whatever they want on their Facebook, their Meta, they're whoever they are, but they think it's okay to just answer a not answer the questions. They also don't believe in accountability because they wouldn't be doing things like this if they did. I think that's the real crime in this situation. I mean, that's the real problem. And we were talking before about YouTube, yes, YouTube, Google Play suspended payment-based services in Russia. So this is getting sticky. So YouTube and the Google Play Store have suspended payments in Russia as of today. And this also includes subscriptions such as Western sanctions starting to pose banking challenges in the country.
John C Morley (17:21):
So, if you can't get money in the country out of the country, the business is not going to be able to last. I mean, how are they going to be able to get funded, right? How are they going to make any money? So I think what's trying to go on is they feel that if they can hit where their money comes in, then maybe Russia will wake up. But I don't think they're going to figure that out. I think they just a lack of better way to say this, focused on what they want, and they don't care what they do or who they hurt. They don't care if they hurt themselves or their own people because they're just so driven. They remind me of something called a Kamikaze pilot; that pilot is designed to fight and sacrifice themselves in an attack, taking the plane and just basically driving it right into whatever they want to hit while they're still on board.
John C Morley (18:27):
That's terrible. Makes me feel absolutely horrible to think that people would, that we have that. I hope we don't have that anymore, but we never know. All right, so YouTube's kind of sick of it too, and other banks are getting very tired of it. And another interesting point is that the European Union says they rated the online consumer electronics retailer today, March 10th, 2023. But my question is, what is this all about? So, I want to make a quote here. The European Commission can confirm that on March 10th, okay? This was 2025 commission officials initiated unannounced inspections in several member states at the premises of a number of companies active in the online sale of consumer electronics and consumer electrical products. So the very interesting thing is that now we're starting to see what's going on, and I think the European Union is not playing games. All right? They're going to charge whoever they got to charge, and that's it. I mean, they're just going to do whatever they need to do. And I feel that if we understand this, we'll have a better insight into how things will transpire in our lives and other people's lives. I mean, I think that's the name of the game. And ladies and gentlemen, yes, the FDIC seized the Silicon Bank after the largest failure since the Great Recession economy.
John C Morley (20:15):
This is just terrible. And you're probably saying, John, how could something like this happen? Well, the US rushed to seize the assets of the SVB or the Silicon Valley Bank. Basically, today after a run on the bank, the largest failure of a financial institution since Washington Mutual, during the height of the financial crisis more than a decade ago, did you know that Silicon Valley was the Nation's 16 largest failed after depositors, mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies. As anxiety about the bank situation spread this week, they began withdrawing their money. Silicon Valley was heavily exposed to the tech industry, and there was little chance in that banking sector, similar to what we'd call chaos in the months of the great repression. And it's interesting because, you know, they were a good company, and they probably were a great investment.
John C Morley (21:32):
But Silicon Valley executives were looking to raise capital early or find additional investors in the company. But trading in the chairs had been halted before the opening bell due to extreme volatility. And just shortly before noon eastern time, the FDIC Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced it was shutting the bank down. The FDIC did not wait until the close of the business to seize the bank, as is typical in the orderly wind-down of a financial institution. The FDIC could not immediately find a buyer for the bank's assets, which then signaled how fast deposits had cashed out. The bank's deposits will now be locked up in receivership. I'd hate to be investing in that bank. The FDIC said the deposits below the 250,000 limits would be available Monday morning. So, alright, anything above a quarter million dollars, well, they're not going to get their money anytime soon.
John C Morley (22:41):
And the Silicon Valley Bank announced plans to raise up to 1.75 billion this week to strengthen its capital position amid concerns about higher interest rates and the economy. So, Silicon Valley is not small and holding 210 billion right now in assets, it acts as a major financial conduit for venture capital-backed companies, which had been hit hard in the past 18 months as the FR Federal Reserve raised interest rates and made riskier tech assets less attractive to investors. So, the question is, will Silicon Valley Bank be back?
John C Morley (23:34):
They had 17 branches in California and Massachusetts, and the main office in all branches in the Silicon Valley Bank, you know, was handling this. And the thing about it is that what's been going on, ladies and gentlemen, with this bank, it's a problem. Now, they're saying that on March 13th, the DINB will maintain the Silicon Valley Bank's normal business hours. So will people get their money back from Silicon Valley Bank? Again, it's capped at a quarter million dollars per customer for each eligible bank and per ownership category. But the government has made an exception for SVB and Signature Bank and agreed to make all their depositors whole. I think that's great. So, by getting a bank that the FDIC backs, your money's not in trouble. That's why you always make sure you deposit with an FDIC-insured bank. All right? So the question is, why did Silicon Valley Bank go under? I mean, that's really the big question because they became insolvent, and they had to go basically for a stature of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. And so, did the Silicon Valley Bank collapse? Yeah, it was caused by our run on the bank. The company was not, at least until clients started rushing in for their money, worried.
John C Morley (25:21):
It's interesting because, you know, if you got a bank and all of this money, the bank never assumes that everybody will pull their money at all once, right? But Silicon Valley Bank was the heart of America. It was the heart of all tech companies, right? It was the heart of all tech companies. But when we talk about, you know, how the SVB collapsed.
John C Morley (26:02):
It just happened. It was due to a bank run precipitated by a decline in the start of funding and then the rising interest rates in the firm's sale of government bonds at a huge loss to raise capital. So Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest US bank, with more than 200 million in assets and about 175 billion in deposits. No small change. In our times, if we were to go back, you know, 2023, the question on many bank customers' minds after the stunning failure of the SVB signature Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in the past weeks is the current problem at the Credit Swiss. Those Swiss banks' issues are very different from what took down the two US regional banks. Could they be in heat necks? They might be in a lot of trouble. So, is money safe in a bank?
John C Morley (27:06):
Yes. The FDIC insures all deposits up to $250,000. As long as your bank has the thing that says their FDIC is insured, you are good to go up to $250,000. So if you're asking me a question, John, what family owns the biggest bank? And that's going to be the Rothschild, okay? And so when you think about a bank, okay? Banks tend to keep only enough cash in the vault to meet their anticipated transaction needs. So small banks may keep 50,000 or less on hand, while larger banks might keep as much as 200,000 or more for available transactions. Now, this surprises a lot of people because they assume that the bank vaults are always full of cash. They're not. So you might be telling yourself, who is the number one bank? And, I'm not here to give you who the number one bank is because I think this is all speculation.
John C Morley (28:10):
You know, it's all about who's paying the most amount of money and things like that. Now, according to the rules, there is no limit to keeping cash at home, but it is necessary that whatever cash is available to you, you should have a complete account of it. Where did the cash come from, and what is the source? If you have a large amount of cash, then tax should be paid on it. So there's nothing wrong with having a large amount of cash, but make sure you have your records for that cash. And so you might be saying, John, what's the strongest bank in the United States? Again, I don't want to give you the names because I think this is all speculated. And so, the last time we had a failure like this was in 2008; that's just crazy that, you know, SVB went down. So the question you probably asked me, John, is, will another bank close soon? Don't know. Don't know. But we see a lot of banks closing their locations and, you know, kind of consolidating, right? So, is silicon SVB the only one, or will there be others?
John C Morley (29:57):
Remember that people are just starting to see the impact of what happened. There's still much more damage that's going to transpire. Now, Silicon Valley Bank was unique in how it funded its deals. They operate a lot more on risk than most banks do because they were dealing with startups and they also charged a lot more money for the amount of cash or assets that people were borrowing, but there was no warning sign, and you might be Amy John. So, what does it really mean that Silicon Valley Bank has gone out of business? It's scaring a lot of people, okay? And they're starting to lose trust in banks. Does that mean you're bank into trouble? No, but you have to realize, think of this like what happened with the mortgage industry many years ago where they were doing mortgages, people didn't have the money, and then they had an overrun, and then they couldn't pay, and then there were all these issues, right? So, you might be saying, John, who is the competitor of SVB? Well, you got promoter, corn Coinbase, or Orion advisor FSET Research Management, okay? With the biggest one being a promoter.
John C Morley (31:37):
The question is, will these other banks have the same failures? Again, they crashed because they did not have enough cash to pay the depositors. So the regulators closed the bank, but the more drawn-out answer started during the pandemic when the SVB and other banks were raking in more deposits than they could lend out to borrowers. I always say there's got to balance all the time. Because if there isn't sooner or later, the scales will become in line, and someone's not going to be happy with that. But I think what scares people is that they were a foundation for many types of businesses.
John C Morley (32:30):
So, what does it mean that SVB went out of business? What does it really mean? They held a lot of the high number of treasuries in other government bonds. So this is a problem. This is a very big problem. And so whenever you look into something, or you deal with a bank or something like that, I think you have to look at a bank that is not going to be a high risk, just like they don't want you to be a high risk. You got to make sure the bank you're dealing with is not very susceptible to risk.
John C Morley (33:34):
People are saying, how bad could it get because of this? Disruptions to cash flow are likely for some businesses, and a big effect is on the payroll. Lots of people are wondering if their next paycheck will be disrupted. Some people already know their paychecks will be from a payroll service company called rippling. And they had to tell its customers that some paychecks weren't coming on time because of the SVB collapse. For some workers, that's rent or mortgage payments or money for groceries, gas or childcare that, unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, isn't coming. So this is very hard for startups. Some investors are loaning their companies money to make payroll, and you have to realize that this might be a big problem because of crypto. But SVB's failure said they don't have anything to do with crypto's meltdown. I don't know if I believe that or not. So, if SVB doesn't exist anymore, what happens?
John C Morley (35:00):
The FDIC will create a new entity, the deposit insurance National Bank of Santa Clara, for all insured deposits for Silicon Valley Bank and will open for business on March 13th, which they'll be doing soon. And people who have uninsured deposits will be paid in advanced dividends and get a little certificate, but that isn't a guarantee. People will get all their money back. Yeah. So, the FDIC'S job is to get the maximum amount from Silicon Valley bank's assets. And that could happen a couple of ways. One is that another bank acquires SVB, which I wouldn't recommend that gain the deposits in the process. In the best-case scenario, that acquisition means that everyone gets all their money back. Yeah, hooray. And that's the best case, not just for everyone who wants to get their paycheck on time, but also because the FDIC's greater mission is to exist to ensure stability and public confidence in the US banking system. Now, f the SVB's assets can only be sold for, let's say, 90 cents on the dollar. It could encourage bank runs elsewhere, and then we could have more problems. But I think we were given a taste of something that could happen elsewhere. And I wouldn't say this is going to happen in your typical bank. This is going to happen more in your venture capitalist banks. It's going to happen more on your startup funding banks.
John C Morley (36:41):
And this is why some banks actually run a credit check on you. They want to make sure that you really are able to maintain an account. They want to see if you've had a bank account in the past and did you overdraw it. Did you pay it back, right? Because all these things affect whether the company will want to do business with you and could potentially open them up to a greater risk, which could potentially put them out of business. So, a good old-fashioned bank run tip, the SVB over and there were no George Bailey to stop it. That's the short answer. And so, of course, interest rates went up, and that didn't help.
John C Morley (37:30):
But customers tried to withdraw a quarter of the bank's total deposits on a single day. And thus that my friends caused the bank to go out of business. And they might be saying, well, who's in charge here? After the failure year after the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank, which was now the former CEO, Greg Becker became a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. That's one of the 12 banks overseen by the Washington Fed. While the bank run was ongoing, Becker told VCs that I would ask everyone to stay calm and support us just like we supported you during challenging times.
John C Morley (38:14):
Unfortunately, separately from Becker's Ill communication, he was the leader behind the Spooky Asset Sale, Cher offering combo punch. In fact, Silicon Valley Bank had other options. It could have borrowed funds or tried to offer sweet deals to depositors who stayed. They didn't choose to do that. Turns out that Becker also sold 3.6 million shares in Silicon Valley Banks company on February 27th. And this was a prearranged sale he filed the paperwork for on January 26th. But it doesn't seem very curious that he did this. I think the Fed should have been able to monitor this, and they should have seen the writing on the wall so they could have stepped in before this became a problem. I know they stepped in, but I think if we had known this sooner, I think there could have been some way to at least alert them that the bank might be taken over.
John C Morley (39:16):
And, you know, let's face it, I've known people that have borrowed credit card to credit card where they take one, let's say credit card and let's say they're in business. Well, they decide that they take credit cards for their business. So they run up the balance. Let's say a card was a thousand dollars. So, they got to pay that bill. Well, they'll run the credit card for, I don't know, 1500 or 1200, and then they'll pay that card back. And then next, if they don't get the money, I guess they'll do it again. 1500. And they'll keep doing this until maybe they get to a limit where the credit card company says, Hey, wait a minute. They might get away with doing up to 10,000 or 20,000. It depends on their cash flow, how good a business they are, and how long they've been around. But most companies won't get past 10 or $20,000 once this happens. And now they're in a free state. It's like, oh, what am I going to do? How am I going to get out of this mess?
John C Morley (40:15):
I'm very disappointed with the way the officers have SVB operated and what they did. It's like they knew the bank was going to fail. I think they should have tried to sell the bank instead of trying to capitalize on money and put themselves out of business. Because if they had sold the bank, at least that asset would still be there today. And people that need funding could still be able to go there. This happened because of the banks, and I don't know all the details, but I do know that people got scared. And so maybe it was a matter of the bank reaching out to people and kind of making sure, maybe saying, hey, you know what, this month we're going to waive your fees, or whatever it is. The bank could have done something. They could have lowered interest rates; they could have done something.
John C Morley (41:11):
And with this something, people would've become much more comfortable. But just a little bit. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm John C Morley, a serial entrepreneur. It has been an amazing privilege, a pleasure, and an honor to be with you this fantastic evening. I hope you'll like, love, and support the channel. Comment below, and tag your friends, colleagues and associates. Share this with everyone you know on social media. Go to my YouTube channel, John C. Morley Serial Entrepreneur. Look for that key phrase; help keep your content free. Make a choice, ladies and gentlemen, to buy my team and me a cup of coffee, a bowl of fruit, or a nice delicious dessert. Either way, we're going to be very grateful. We'll put those paintings and dollars you invest into us into new hardware, new technology, equipment, software, and even new facilities to give you the most jaw-dropping empowered content to change your life.
John C Morley (41:59):
I hope you enjoyed the JMOR Tech talk today. And if you are a guest that would like to apply will, message me or reach out. We love to have great guests. Remember, this is not a sales show. This is about providing value to so many other people with a passion for learning what tech is and how it can protect their life, and how they can just explore it, learn from it, and become a better version of it themself. I'll see you guys next week. What you guys know will have another great show for you. And that'll be on, yes, the 17th. I don't know where this month's going, but I can't wait to see you again next week. Take care. Check out my other great shows at believemeachieve.com. Be well, everyone