Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

finance.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 465 posts

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#231

Post by saagarjha »

dvt wrote: post #209
Merad wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] doing your own startup is one of the few relatively low risk gambles one can take. I was under the impression that around 90% of startups failed. Was I mistaken, have the numbers changed, or do we just have very different thresholds for "low risk"?

High failure rate ≠ high risk. Everything with a high upside will have a high failure rate, but working 10 hours on your own startup a week is definitely lower risk than gambling with options (which is what /r/wallstreetbets is doing) or gambling with crypto (even higher risk). I know people that made low 7 figures last year flipping NFTs, but the risk profile (to me, at least) was untenable. At least in Vegas you ge…

Ok, but the comparison was to a 9-to-5 job, not gambling.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#232

Post by dvt »

saagarjha wrote: post #231
dvt wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High failure rate ≠ high risk. Everything with a high upside will have a high failure rate, but working 10 hours on your own startup a week is definitely lower risk than gambling with options (which is what /r/wallstreetbets is doing) or gambling with crypto (even higher risk). I know people that made low 7 figures last year flipping NFTs, but the risk profile (to me, at least) was untenable. At least in Vegas you ge…

Ok, but the comparison was to a 9-to-5 job, not gambling.

That's even more of a no-brainer, as an average 9-5 has practically zero upside, so your net worth is likely to stay flat (if not even go down). We like to pretend that the /r/wallstreetbets or crypto people are crazy, but most are median earners that feel that there's no way to break out without gambling. When we look at the housing situation, most are sadly right.

What do people want? To marry a cute girl, buy a house, have a few kids, retire, go fishing; if they get that big promotion maybe even buy a boat. But this life is simply not attainable today.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#233

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #230
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it takes to "undo" it is for inflation to slow down (already happening/happened), and wages to increase a little faster than inflation. A few years of that, and it will effectively be as if never happened (in aggregate, anyway).

No, that simply isn't possible. Slowing inflation means price continuing to rise.

wages increasing faster than inflation means that effective (sometimes called "real") prices fall.

If in year N an item costs $1000 and you earn $10k a year, but in year N+M the item costs $1100 but you earn $12k a year, the real price of the item has gone down.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#234

Post by mistrial9 »

bumby wrote: post #108
klyrs wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are greater sins: we have a military, you know. Raising a child means teaching nuance in ethics. I've had similar conversations with my kid, arising from questions like "why do robbers exist?" "Why are some people homeless?" "Why do murderers exist?" Ethics is full of gray areas, and refusing to engage in hard conversations increases the risk that your kid will make the wrong call if they ever find themselves i…

I agree that they main point of ethics is providing a decision framework in the grey areas (if they were clear-cut, there would be no discussion). But that seems off-place here. It leads to the question about "when is it okay to steal?" There's an obvious "defense of necessity", but that doesn't stop at stealing someone's means to a living. If it's legal to steal food in a disaster, it doesn't matter if that food com…

I am really trying to reconcile the earnest goody-goodyness here against watching the low income housing at length in my crowded city, where stealing in multiple forms is a common and in fact relentless occurrence, for lots of reasons, with lots of attitude, with loud vulgar cursing in front of the multiple children standing in plain sight while it happens (once in a while). There are plain lies and made-up on the spot allegations, name-calling and posturing sometimes, sort of like a social theater. But much more often it is out of sight and some kind of sneakiness is involved.

Next in line would be a completely different situation -- small business. Multiple times over long years of small business, I have seen crooked things done with money, by ordinary people.. probably parents. Some of those small business owners may have been from recent migrants, and felt pressured that way in a new city, but also not. Some small business people have certain words, phrases, they brush off the story, make it sound like it is the other person's fault, or that the questioner is confused somehow. And it continues... do they "teach their children not to steal" those small business people ? I dont know, but these stories are real.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#235

Post by PascLeRasc »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #141
kodyo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing forcing anybody to bank with Wells Fargo. Their customers are clearly content, because they're still Wells Fargo customers. Edit: shit, someone else pointed out that they buy mortgages. Nevermind.

My oldest credit file is a credit card that I don't use anymore but it is owned by WF. If I close it, my credit score is negatively impacted by losing a decades old credit line. I don't particularly care about my credit score, and this sort of lock-in is pretty low friction, but changing banks can have costs. I hate them, over the years that I banked with them, they have consistently been a bad bank. I think I have a…

The idea that closing your oldest credit line immediately puts you out on the street penniless is a redditism that's been parroted too much. That old account closed in good standing will continue to support your credit score, and if you have another credit card that's been open for a few years, the score hit will be 10-15 points. You shouldn't feel like you're trapped with Wells forever.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#236

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

bill_joy_fanboy wrote: post #199
bityard wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to marginalize your frustration, but I feel like you may have unrealistic expectations. First, you have a tech industry salary, which is probably at least twice as much as the median wage, if not more. Not only is it white-collar work with practically no risk to your physical safety (assuming you exercise, eat right, etc), but monetarily this puts you _way_ ahead of most people right out of the gate. If…

> First, you have a tech industry salary, which is probably at least twice as much as the median wage, if not more. This is exactly his point. If he can't make it with what he has going for him, who can? > You only options are to accept that and adjust your budget/income/location appropriately, or opt to rent forever, which is not at all a bad thing since owning a primary residence is never an investment. (Although t…

what about people that dont pay taxes i.e. every other chinese, saudi, indian, russian, EU and LATAM millionaire that owns several properties in miami, orlando, nyc, LA, dallas, houston, phoenix, etc.

What about banks and REITs that are passthru entities for the same folk above ?

What about SV out-of-staters that don't pay state taxes but work remote at places like LV, Salt Lake, or Boise ?

You want to fleece your own... but others you let just... walk in ?

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#237

Post by saagarjha »

dvt wrote: post #232
saagarjha wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but the comparison was to a 9-to-5 job, not gambling.

That's even more of a no-brainer, as an average 9-5 has practically zero upside, so your net worth is likely to stay flat (if not even go down). We like to pretend that the /r/wallstreetbets or crypto people are crazy, but most are median earners that feel that there's no way to break out without gambling. When we look at the housing situation, most are sadly right. What do people want? To marry a cute girl, buy a ho…

I mean, you already probably know this, but the risk profile of a startup that fails is not that you keep your money constant. It’s that you’ve been spending it all on rent and utilities for the last 7 years and have nothing to show for it. You’re still gambling away your savings, at a much slower and controlled rate, and the house at least doesn’t have the advantage over you, but it’s still incomparable to the risk profile of a 9-to-5.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#238

Post by mrhands556 »

sizzle wrote: post #139
obblekk wrote: post #9

I feel so much cognitive dissonance realizing that there are hard working people literally losing their home and shelter wrongly while I might be sitting across from them at any time, expecting them to behave within normal social boundaries. Imagine a family with a new born, working 50+ hours at a physically demanding job, making $80k/yr combined, and then losing their home for no reason... and then being expected to…

I can’t even afford a home right now on a tech salary with sky high rent paying off my landlords 2% refi’d mortgage and student loans making it impossible at 6-7% fed interest rate hikes and inflated home prices after the insane COVID housing price bubble increase. I feel like life won’t start for another 5+ years for people like me, unless we gamble on being underwater on an inflated mortgage entering at the peak of…

I bought my first two houses over the last 10 years and each time I thought we were at the peak, and I was way wrong. First mortgage had over 5% mortgage rate and 2nd was the same.

Outside of closing costs mortgage rates are temporary (can always refi). Land is a finite resource. It should continue to go up.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#239

Post by sidewndr46 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #233
sidewndr46 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that simply isn't possible. Slowing inflation means price continuing to rise.

wages increasing faster than inflation means that effective (sometimes called "real") prices fall. If in year N an item costs $1000 and you earn $10k a year, but in year N+M the item costs $1100 but you earn $12k a year, the real price of the item has gone down.

Yeah, except we're talking about returning to pre-Covid levels. Not whatever you just made up.

That would imply prices return to the previous levels. That will never happen with inflation.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#240

Post by geraldwhen »

klyrs wrote: post #123
LastTrain wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad told me not to steal.

Quoted post unavailable.

I teach my kids that we shoot thieves dead as permitted by law.

Let’s hope my kids never run into the kids who were taught “stealing is okay sometimes.”

You steal, you rob, you assault, you die. It’s very simple.

Post reply on HN