101–110 of 159 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Resinged is a nice way to put it. Once before the senate, then again before the house.
Sorry and not to be the grammar police but it's resigned...
(Also, the original mistake was not a grammatical error, but rather a spelling one. If you're going to be pedantic at least get it right.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point wasn't for these fake accounts to generate revenue. The bank executives knew that Wall Street used the number of new accounts opened as an indicator in their valuation of the stock. They explicitly reported new accounts in their quarterly results. Knowing this the executives pursued policies to boost account numbers reasoning that it would boost the stock price by boosting expectations even though it wouldn…
This is the central point I am making: there is little evidence that: 1) The stock price was inflated. This can be seen by the fact that the valuation of WF is relatively stable both prior to and after this debacle. (outside of the short term volatility due to the scandal). If what you are saying is true then we would have expected the market to dump WF shares at the "inflated" price. This did not happen 2) That the…
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/18/investing/wells-fargo-warned...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why not? Because prison is barbaric, and expensive and should be saved for hardened criminals. Nothing personal, but it's people like you who think throwing people in prison some kind of societal solution that we have overflowing prisons of petty criminals.
Except that's not how prison exists today. You steal a TV you go to prison. You steal a car you go to prison. You defraud society to the tune of 500 million you pay a fine and you keep your life of luxury? The double standard is unjustifiable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that's not how prison exists today. You steal a TV you go to prison. You steal a car you go to prison. You defraud society to the tune of 500 million you pay a fine and you keep your life of luxury? The double standard is unjustifiable.
Not familiar with "two wrongs don't make a right"?
- Stolen TV (let's say $1000 burglary)
- Stolen car (let's say $15,000)
- $500MM fraud
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anyone who has worked in a company of any size knows it'd be down near impossible to know the inner working at all levels of the organization. So, yes, the guy is accountable and needs to lose his job. But the idea that he should go to prison for something like this is ludicrous.
Prison may be a bit harsh. And in a vacuum, you're right. It would be somewhat unfair to drop the hammer, out of nowhere, on some unsuspecting CEO who just did "business as usual". But that's no excuse; it just means we need to create a culture where this kind of thing becomes increasingly unacceptable, so that in the future executives will know what's expecting of them, and what the consequences can be. The "uninten…
What do the libertarians say about this theft? While I understand the idea of the free market, I don't see how that would have protected the consumer in this case. The CEO has millions of times the power of the average consumer, and can harness thousands of people to his agenda. The consumer is left to either (a) pay the "idiot" tax of being stupid enough to sign up for a thieving bank, or (b) rely on the government…
Most libertarians agree that fraud should be illegal, and that customers should be able to press criminal and civil charges if fraud is perpetrated against them. In this case, the bank charged customers for services they never requested. That is fraud. It has nothing to do with "free markets" as defined by libertarians. If you find some libertarian scholarship, you will also notice that libertarians see contract enfo…
This "faith in the law" is libertarianism's biggest weakness, and the reason why the older I've gotten, the more appealing anarchism has become. The ways we see the law working in this case, are just the ways that law actually works. Screw the little guy and protect the big man? A feature, not a bug!
The reasonable way to oppose unfairness is to actually oppose unfairness, not to imagine that some contingent and evolved phenomenon called "law" is going to magically give us what we want. If utopia comes and police are devoted only to the enforcement of contract, those entrusted with interpreting contracts will be our rulers. Those in power, will exercise power. This recursion can't be defined out of existence.
I watched Stumpf testify in front of the Senate Banking Committee, and while I agree that (from what I saw) he should be held accountable, what I don't understand is why the right venue for it is the Senate instead of the Judiciary. Warren clearly thinks that Stumpf wasn't just doing a bad job, but that what he did and didn't do was criminal in some way (eg the talk of jail time, comparisons to Enron in the article).…
Think about it. Who would benefit from putting a banker on public trial? I'll give you a guess, their initials are EW.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not familiar with "two wrongs don't make a right"?
I think you're implying that those punishments are wrong. What would be justice in your eyes for the three crimes described? To mine, the proportionality seems more than a little out of whack. - Stolen TV (let's say $1000 burglary) - Stolen car (let's say $15,000) - $500MM fraud
I'll play anyway for funzies though. First offence?
All 3 should be a non-bankruptable fine with a floor that also scales with historical earnings and wealth. I can't give specific numbers because I think it should be set at figures large enough to act as a suitable deterrent which I don't know and would need to research. Since in a scenario where I'm magically put in charge of the legal system I would have the means and incentive to do that research, I think that's fair on my part. Potentially some public shaming involving stocks and vegetable throwing depending on its cost effectiveness as a deterrent as well.
I imagine the fine amount would be far greater for the fraud though, which would help with the lack of proportionality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anyone who has worked in a company of any size knows it'd be down near impossible to know the inner working at all levels of the organization. So, yes, the guy is accountable and needs to lose his job. But the idea that he should go to prison for something like this is ludicrous.
I believe a variation of that argument was used at Nuremberg.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're implying that those punishments are wrong. What would be justice in your eyes for the three crimes described? To mine, the proportionality seems more than a little out of whack. - Stolen TV (let's say $1000 burglary) - Stolen car (let's say $15,000) - $500MM fraud
Mostly I'm implying that your argument doesn't hold weight. You don't throw someone in prison because if you don't there's a double standard with some other offence. You throw them in there because the crime they committed warranted it. I'll play anyway for funzies though. First offence? All 3 should be a non-bankruptable fine with a floor that also scales with historical earnings and wealth. I can't give specific nu…
I think one issue is the perception that some very rich people can afford to pay those large fines, which acts as less of a deterrent.