More than half of all residents in the Big Tech hub of Silicon Valley are planning to ditch the region due to spiraling costs and quality-of-life issues, according to the results of a poll released this week.

A whopping 64% of residents in Silicon Valley, home to corporate heavyweights such as Google, Meta and Apple, say they are concerned the region is on the wrong track, according to the 2022 Silicon Valley poll conducted by Joint Venture and the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies.

Meanwhile, 56% of respondents said they were likely to move out of the Bay Area “in the next few years.” The figure is even higher for working-age residents, with 59% of adults aged 18 to 64 indicating they were likely to seek greener pastures.

Among individuals who plan to leave, 67% cited housing costs, while 47% pointed to a falling quality of life and 43% were sick of the area’s high taxes.

“There’s a mood out there – the mood is gloomy. The mood is darkening,” Russell Hancock, the CEO of Joint Venture and president of the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies, said during a briefing on the poll’s findings.

“The folks that are working in Silicon Valley think that despite their work, the overall region is losing ground,” Hancock added.

The poll results surfaced during a period in which several prominent businesses, including some based in the Bay Area, have opted to leave California for other states. Firms that have relocated include Tesla, Oracle, Hewlett Packard and Charles Schwab.

Silicon Valley’s high cost of housing was a top concern for residents, with 76% of respondents identifying steep rent and home costs as an “extremely serious problem.”

Other “extremely serious problems” flagged by locals included cost of living, with 72% of respondents using that description, homelessness at 71% and the region’s propensity for droughts at 58%.

Taking into account all factors, 36% of Silicon Valley dwellers who responded to the poll said the Bay Area’s quality of life has gotten worse over the last five years.


https://nypost.com/2022/10/05/more-than-half-of-silicon-valley-residents-want-to-leave-the-mood-is-darkening/

The text must also be formally agreed to by lawmakers at the European Parliament and is expected to be published in the EU's official journal in the early part of next year before taking effect in 2024."

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday fined 16 financial firms, including Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS, a combined $1.1 billion over failing to maintain and preserve electronic communications.
• The sweeping industry probe, which was first reported by Reuters last year and had since been disclosed by multiple lenders, is a landmark case for the agency, regulatory experts said.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday fined 16 financial firms, including Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS, a combined $1.1 billion over failing to maintain and preserve electronic communications.

The sweeping industry probe, which was first reported by Reuters last year and had since been disclosed by multiple lenders, is a landmark case for the agency, regulatory experts said.

“The firms admitted the facts...acknowledged that their conduct violated recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws... and have begun implementing improvements to their compliance policies and procedures to settle these matters,” the SEC said.

From January 2018 through September 2021, the banks’ employees routinely communicated about business matters using applications such as text messages and WhatsApp on their personal devices, while the institutions did not preserve the majority of these communications, in violation of the rules, the SEC found.

That likely impeded the SEC’s ability to gather evidence in other, unrelated investigations, the agency said.

The failings occurred across all 16 firms and involved employees at multiple levels of authority, including supervisors and senior executives, the SEC said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/27/us-fines-16-wall-street-firms-1point1-billion-over-record-keeping-failures.html

• Reuters reported that China told state-owned banks to get ready to sell dollars and buy yuan in an effort to prop up the local currency.
• The move could stem the yuan's fall, as it remains on track for its largest annual loss against the dollar since 1994.
• A hawkish Fed has pushed the dollar to 20-year highs this year, pressuring currencies around the world.

The People's Bank of China has told major state-run banks to prepare to shed dollar holdings while snapping up offshore yuan, which has continued to fall despite prior interventions, sources told Reuters.

The scale of this latest effort to prop up the yuan will be big and could provide a floor to the Chinese currency, according to the report.

The amount of dollars to be sold hasn't been decided yet, but Reuters said it will primarily involve the state banks' currency reserves. Their offshore branches, including those based in Hong Kong, New York and London, were ordered to review offshore yuan holdings and check to see that dollar reserves are ready.

On Thursday, the yuan fell 0.9% to 7.1340 against the dollar and is on track for its worst annual decline since 1994, having lost more than 11% so far this year. Earlier this week, China's offshore yuan this week depreciated to a record-low against the greenback, and its domestic unit fell to its weakest level since the 2008 financial crisis.

The Federal Reserve's hawkish policy path has bolstered the dollar to 20-year highs this year, putting pressure on other central banks and triggering a "reverse currency war."

While a weaker currency can sometimes be beneficial, as it means exports get cheaper, the yuan's recent decline below the psychological threshold of 7-per-dollar has raised concerns.

The People's Bank of China has consistently imposed a strong bias to its currency reference rate to help support the yuan. Central bank officials have also issued verbal warnings against speculating on the yuan and increased the cost of shorting the currency.

But it has refrained from raising benchmark rates and instead has been easing them in an effort to spark growth in an economy that's been dragged down by COVID-19 lockdowns, a real estate crash, and supply chain snags.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/china-bank-dollar-yuan-currency-markets-economy-beijing-fed-hike-2022-9

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is starting to phase out an offering far more associated with old-fashioned bank branches than today’s smartphone apps: safe deposit boxes.

The New York-based lender no longer allows customers to rent new boxes. If a Chase bank branch is shut, its safe deposit boxes will be closed as well, and their holders won’t be able to open a new box at another location.

“We made a business decision to stop offering new safe deposit boxes as of December 2021, but that doesn’t affect current customers who have boxes,” said JPMorgan spokesman Tom Kelly.

Banks have offered safe deposit boxes for decades as places for customers to store valuables and important documents. The future of the business is uncertain as US lenders close branches at a record pace. Even as financial firms also open new branches, they’re often smaller locations without room for the large vaults that house safe deposit boxes.

Historically, lenders have associated safe deposit boxes with losses, since they have to dedicate real estate and staff to running the business, according to the consultancy Safe Deposit Specialists. Still, the service caters to lenders’ longest-tenured and wealthiest account holders, with the average box holder making an income 14% higher than the national average, and most at least 50 years old.

“It’s the most expensive square footage you can put in a new branch,” David McGuinn, president of Safe Deposit Specialists, said in an interview. “If you calculate building a vault, putting a security system on it, there’s $10,000 worth of boxes, you have to train your people on it. It’s not a cheap service.”

The business traces its roots more than 150 years back, when Francis Jenks started a standalone safe deposit box business, McGuinn said. Jenks built a fire-proof building at the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street in New York’s financial district, outfitted with armed guards, according to an 1865 New York Times article.

It wasn’t until the 1930s that the US Supreme Court passed a law allowing banks to offer the service, according to the Arkansas Law Review. Since then, lenders have built millions of safe deposit boxes around the country. Prices vary by size, location and bank, with an average annual cost of $60 per box, researcher ValuePenguin has found.

“There’s not a whole lot of income in it,” McGuinn said. Still, lenders should realize “that the people who need these boxes are some of their biggest depositors.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-chase-phasing-safe-deposit-131842236.html

Does this "anti-touting provision" concern only securities or other assets too?

The top U.S. financial regulator has charged celebrity Kim Kardashian for touting a cryptocurrency on her Instagram account without disclosing that she was paid for the promotion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday Kardashian has agreed to pay a fine of $1 million, although she did not admit or deny the S.E.C.'s findings. She will also give back $260,000, which includes her payment from the company with interest.

"Ms. Kardashian's case also serves as a reminder to celebrities and others that the law requires them to disclose to the public when and how much they are paid to promote investing in securities," said SEC chair Gary Gensler.

Kardashian, who has around 330 million Instagram followers, was paid $250,000 to promote cryptocurrency offered by EthereumMax called EMAX tokens.

According to regulators, her post also "provided instructions for potential investors to purchase EMAX tokens." And that violates an "anti-touting provision" in the federal securities laws.

As the popularity of crypto has ballooned, companies have spent millions of dollars on marketing. Many of them have hired celebrities spokespersons, including comedian Larry David and actor Matt Damon, to promote their products. But after the value of Bitcoin and other digital currencies plummeted, many of them have been criticized for boosting them.

As more and more celebrities promote products online, regulators have started to take a closer look to make sure that they're following rules.

The Federal Trade Commission, for instance, has cracked down on celebrities and social media influencers who don't adequately disclose their connections or that they are paid by the products they promote.

Two years ago, the FTC fired off warning letters to several Internet influencers and celebrities, like the recording artists Cardi B and Jordin Sparks, reminding them of their legal obligation to disclose their connections to the products they promote.

While Kardashian didn't admit or deny the SEC's findings, in an agreement with the regulator, she agreed to not promote any crypto asset securities for three years.


https://www.npr.org/2022/10/03/1126526883/sec-charges-kim-kardashian-for-unlawfully-touting-crypto-on-her-instagram-accoun