wells fargo's revenge

Butch: What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful.

Guard: People kept robbing it.

Butch: Small price to pay for beauty.

***********

in its 162 years, wells fargo has endured numerous robberies. stagecoaches and trains and banks, oh my.

it must've cost the company, literally, thousands of dollars.

so you can't blame today's wells fargo for wanting to recoup its losses ~ with billions in interest.

multinational corporations are people, after all. they only want what's fair.

and what could be more fair than uncounted billions in taxpayer funded bailouts, bonuses and boondoggles? ninety-nine percent of the 99% are willing to ignore such things, most of the time. until it affects them directly. then folks get irritated enough to complain, a little.

thanks to social media, occasionally those complaints generate a desired response. not often, but sometimes.

in the "not often" column, there's the wells fargo role in the subprime crisis, racially discriminatory lending practices, and ravening foreclosure factories. the company has deepdeepdeep pockets, see, and no qualms about driving its customers to ruin of varying and permanent degree (and by permanent we mean death).

the company has been sued, to be sure ~ repeatedly. but such cases, when brought by individuals, rarely are decided against mega-billion dollar corporations. larger parties, like blue cross-blue shield of minnesota, and the cities of baltimore and memphis, seem to fare better. go figure.

also, wells fargo is not afraid to eat its own, if by "its own" you mean garden variety and therefore completely expendable employees...

Wells Fargo fires Des Moines worker over 1963 Laundromat incident involving fake dime

Richard Eggers, 68, was fired in July from his job as a customer service representative for putting a cardboard cutout of a dime in a washing machine nearly 50 years ago in Carlisle, Iowa, the Des Moines Register reported Monday.

Big banks have been firing low-level employees like Eggers since new federal banking employment guidelines were enacted in May 2011 and new mortgage employment guidelines took hold in February, the newspaper said. The tougher standards are meant to clear out executives and mid-level bank employees guilty of transactional crimes - such as identity theft and money laundering - but are being applied across the board because of possible fines for noncompliance.

Banks have fired thousands of workers nationally, said Natasha Buchanan, an attorney in Santa Ana who has helped some of the workers regain their eligibility to be employed.

"Banks are afraid of the FDIC and the penalties they could face," Buchanan said.

wait, banks are afraid of what? the fdic? penalties? do you think natasha said that with a straight face? or do you think she said it with a snort, rolling her eyes? good one, natasha.

as noted above, the purpose of the "guideline" under which mr. eggers was fired was "to clear out executives and mid-level bank employees guilty of transactional crimes ~ such as identity theft and money laundering."

unbreaking news: employees fired over a 1963 dime: one. wells fargo executives fired for their role in the subprime crisis, reverse redlining, and predatory lending: zero.

"thanks to social media, sometimes those complaints generate a desired response."

yeah, this is not one of those times. mr. eggers filed with the fdic to be reinstated to his job, but it'll be months before his case is resolved. this despite the fact that his story has gone viral, internet-wise. google it. eggers was featured in an abc news story, and was even contacted for an interview by the colbert report. that's almost as good as walter cronkite. better, even, since uncle walter is not currently alive.

"kid, the next time i say, 'let's
go someplace like bolivia,'
let's go someplace like bolivia."

upon a time, people robbed banks (and stagecoaches and trains) because it was sort of easy. pull a gun, blow open the safe, ride off with the money. then the people with the money got wise, and made robberies much more difficult. and dangerous. over time, and for the most part, the robberies ceased.

or, at least, they ceased to be a problem for wells fargo. which has learned the lessons of history and ridden off with the real money.

which, one might easily imagine, is the best revenge.

Butch: I couldn't do that. Could you? How the hell can they do that? Who are those guys?