Comedian, musician, podcaster and Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton will share his hard-won wisdom with whosoever seeks it. Follow Crofton on Facebook and Twitter, and to submit a question for the Advice King, email bestofbread[at]gmail[dot]com or editor[at]nashvillescene[dot]com.
Dear Advice King,
With another recent bank collapse, I'm feeling uneasy about the small amount I have in my savings account. It's all I've got! Will the FDIC protect me? Should I be worried?
Thanks!
—Alice in Albuquerque, N.M.
Ah yes, the bank collapse. “Silicon Valley Bank,” to be precise. What a name. Silicon Valley isn’t even a real place — it’s a 1980s-era nickname for a valley where a bunch of software companies are located. It’s actually the space between two earthquake faults. Up until the 1960s it was the largest fruit-producing and packing region in the world. Its nickname then was “The Valley of Heart’s Delight.” I am not making that up. During the Stone Age it was probably known as “that valley over there.” In the future, it will be “that valley under the ocean.”
Big picture? “Silicon Valley” (SILLY CON — coincidence?) is a flash in the pan. Computers have been around a little longer than disco — not nearly as long as kissing — and they’ve already pretty much demolished civilization. Facebook was supposed to be, like, the Pet Rock of 2007 or something. Instead, it’s torn families apart. Say what you want about the Pet Rock, it’s objectively better than social media. OBJECTIVELY. Did a Pet Rock ever tell someone’s grandma that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza place that, it turns out, doesn’t even have a basement?
“Silicon Valley Bank.” C’mon. You wouldn’t put your money in a bank called “Chris Crofton’s Cold Brew Got Me Like Bank,” would you? You would?! BRB ...
My point is, “Silicon Valley Bank” is a sad excuse for a bank name, and — SURPRISE — it was a sad excuse for a bank. And it wasn’t even trying to be a good bank. The “white collar” fuckheads running “Silicon Valley Bank” had powerful, connected depositors. And those bank-running fuckheads knew that those depositors’ friends in the U.S. government wouldn’t let it collapse — so they were reckless.
Silicon Valley Bank was offering big clients personal loans and mortgages — often at nearly 0 interest — to get them to deposit their companies’ assets at SVB. And this is apparently LEGAL. If you can get a loan with a lower interest rate than the Federal Reserve’s current interest rate, you can then put that money into a CD or a money market fund — or just a regular goddamn savings account — AND GENERATE A PROFIT ON THE LOAN WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING. Big loan = big money. Those big, no-strings-attached corporate PPP loans handed out by Steve Mnuchin could be used this way. Contrast this with, say ... your credit card, or the payday loans that poor people have to take out. The average payday loan interest rate is 391 percent. That’s right, THREE-HUNDRED-NINETY-ONE.
BUT NO STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS, BECAUSE PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND CONSEQUENCES. LOL.
I wonder if flappers had a valley named after them back in the 1920s. “Flapper Valley Bank: Your money will be safe as long as the jitterbug is the No. 1 dance in the country.”
OK Alice, here’s the advice. I don’t trust the FDIC to save us. At my house, FDIC stands for Fraudulent Dicks In Cargo Shorts. If we’ve learned anything since 2008, it’s that rich people’s money is more important than our money — and that money isn’t real. The ones in the suits and the ties (Jerome Powell, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Alan Greenspan, etc.) who go on and on about “the free market” will, in the end, print money for their friends.
All these slips of green paper, decimals, and ones and zeroes are actually worthless. Get a few beehives, and plant a garden. Call your garden “The Valley of Heart’s Delight.”
