{"id":5005,"date":"2017-05-25T10:55:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-25T17:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=5005"},"modified":"2017-05-25T10:56:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T17:56:40","slug":"will-occupy-silicon-valley-sequel-occupy-wall-street-kathleen-pender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/05\/25\/will-occupy-silicon-valley-sequel-occupy-wall-street-kathleen-pender\/","title":{"rendered":"“Will Occupy Silicon Valley be the sequel to Occupy Wall Street?” by Kathleen Pender"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Police<\/p>\n

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Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle. \u00a0<\/span>Police officers move in to clear protesters away from a Google bus at 18th and Dolores streets in San Francisco on April 11, 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

May 22, 2017 (sfchroncle.com)<\/p>\n

Could the run-up in tech stocks and the wealth it\u2019s creating spark a backlash against the industry, similar to the one against banks?<\/p>\n

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In a new report, \u201cOccupy Silicon Valley,\u201d Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, says it could.<\/p>\n

By certain measures, tech stocks \u201clook pretty spicily valued,\u201d Harnett said in an interview. He noted that the market values of tech giants already surpass the gross domestic product of some major U.S. cities. \u201cGoogle is bigger than Chicago, Amazon is bigger than Washington,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

He added that Google and Apple combined are worth more than the combined market value of Japanese and eurozone financial companies. The Nasdaq Internet Index, which he calls the \u201cbelly of the beast,\u201d is up 25.6 percent this year versus about 7 percent for the Standard & Poor\u2019s 500 index.<\/p>\n

If this continues, \u201cit could ultimately lead to populist calls for redistribution of the increasingly concentrated wealth of Silicon Valley as the gap between tech capital and human capital grows ever wider,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

In the Bay Area, where tech stocks are currency, there are already signs of this happening \u2014 though not as many as you might expect. The Google-bus blockades, which were more about economic dislocation than corporate shuttles using public bus stops for free, have largely died down.<\/p>\n

Protests against Uber\u2019s plans for huge offices in Oakland receded after the company scaled back and activists turned their attention to the company\u2019s employment policies, use of customer data and its CEO\u2019s ties to President Trump.<\/p>\n

One trend that shows no signs of slowing is the spread of rent control<\/a> throughout the Bay Area. It reflects growing tensions between people in the technology world who can afford to pay sky-high rents and those who cannot. Voters in Mountain View (Google\u2019s headquarters) and Richmond approved rent- and eviction-control measures in November. Santa Rosa will vote on them in June. San Jose\u2019s City Council voted last month to implement eviction controls, and Pacifica\u2019s council approved<\/a> a temporary rent- and eviction-control ordinance that will take effect Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors are still pretty positive on technology,\u201d Hartnett said.<\/p>\n

If this continues, and Hartnett thinks it will, it could produce \u201cpolicy responses\u201d in the form of higher interest rates and a search for ways to redistribute tech wealth. \u201cWhen the government is short of revenue, they will look at places that have a lot of revenue. We know where a lot of that is right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Hartnett is recommending that investors pursue a \u201cbarbell\u201d approach. On one end, they should buy tech stocks because they are likely to continue going up. At the other end, they should invest in stocks that likely would go up if those policy responses ended the tech frenzy. That would be out-of-favor sectors such as gold, natural resources and banks.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com<\/a> Twitter: @kathpender<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle. \u00a0Police officers move in to clear protesters away from a Google bus at 18th and Dolores streets in San Francisco on April 11, 2014. May 22, 2017 (sfchroncle.com) Could the run-up in tech stocks and the wealth it\u2019s creating spark a backlash against the industry,… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5007,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005\/revisions\/5007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}