Wells Fargo Ought to Be Stepped on Like a Bug
In a conversation with a friend, who happens to be a retired international banker, I sounded off about my litany of banking complaints—and they are many—from mild forms of client abuse to outright scandalous conduct.
He smiled that smile a parentproduces when a child is showing its naivety. Leaning back in his chair, he tented his fingers and grinned at me over the tent.
“You don’t understand, Jim.That’s what banks do. They spend their waking hours devising new and creative ways of separating their customers from their money. It’s their defining purpose and should they falter, their stockholders will punish them severely.”
“But surely there are laws,” I replied.
“Indeed there are—and very severe ones at that—but no banker has been convicted in this century and every major bank has a slush-fund of tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as very skilled legal firms with which to defeat the law.”
Now a book could be written about the distance between consumer understandin…