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

Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 119 posts

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#11

Post by newbie578 »

blippage wrote: post #4

As Nassim Taleb observed, the problem here is no skin in the game. Bankers keep the upside, but shareholders have to carry the can. It's an agency problem. The fix to all this is dispensing some good solid jail time.

Absolutely true! Bankers can make short term gains by sacrificing long term growth and nobody does anything, because by the time the true costs appear, the "old" bankers are already gone and there is nothing you can do here, and the "new" bankers came after and are not responsible for what their predecessors did.

All of a sudden you are in a situation where no one has any accountability and long term thinking is not a viable strategy.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#12

Post by rixrax »

But look at Bank of America[0]. 4x that meager $22B of WFC. Or Chase[1], which is only slightly worse than WFC. BK and USB are almost poster childs with only ~1B of penalties each[2][3].

[0] https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/?parent=bank-of-a... [1] https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/jpmorgan-c... [2] https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/us-bancorp [3] https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/bank-of-ne...

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#14

Post by MarkPNeyer »

willcipriano wrote: post #10
MattGaiser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is generally a problem with employees in general, especially as tenures decline. Sales stuffs the channel with products that are later returned as they get their commission. Or they vastly oversell what the product can do. Engineers rack up tech debt to keep the Scrum Master happy and choose technologies based on how good they look on a resume. HR people pass around crappy or abusive employees to other departmen…

I think the tenure decline is a symptom of the removal of incentives outside of simple base pay from the majority of employees. When you have a pension that can only be paid in retirement if the company remains solvent you tend not to make these short term choices.

What you are drafting is the difference between private ownership (ie the company is owned by current a former employees who have an incentive to keep a watchful eye for long term risks) and public ownership (ie the company is owned by anyone who either buys a share or has money with a fund manager who buys the shares), where no single person has any long term incentives.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#15

Post by MattGaiser »

fxtentacle wrote: post #9
MattGaiser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is generally a problem with employees in general, especially as tenures decline. Sales stuffs the channel with products that are later returned as they get their commission. Or they vastly oversell what the product can do. Engineers rack up tech debt to keep the Scrum Master happy and choose technologies based on how good they look on a resume. HR people pass around crappy or abusive employees to other departmen…

"... so it isn't really their money either." Talk about perverse incentives. Their customers, meaning the people who are directly affected, are like the only ones who don't have any power to influence what happens. And everyone with power to influence the company just isn't affected and doesn't care ...

> Their customers, meaning the people who are directly affected, are like the only ones who don't have any power to influence what happens.

They do, but they would need to actually change their spending. That's the other thing. After scandal after scandal after scandal, plenty of people still bank at Wells Fargo.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#18

Post by iechoz6H »

MattGaiser wrote: post #7
blippage wrote: post #4

As Nassim Taleb observed, the problem here is no skin in the game. Bankers keep the upside, but shareholders have to carry the can. It's an agency problem. The fix to all this is dispensing some good solid jail time.

This is generally a problem with employees in general, especially as tenures decline. Sales stuffs the channel with products that are later returned as they get their commission. Or they vastly oversell what the product can do. Engineers rack up tech debt to keep the Scrum Master happy and choose technologies based on how good they look on a resume. HR people pass around crappy or abusive employees to other departmen…

We have a term for that where I work, 'CV Driven Development', we even have a service called 'Brag'.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#20

Post by BirAdam »

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #6

Anecdotally, I rarely hear about China "fining" its egregious corporations, they go straight for the executives. America needs to get its spine back.

In the USA, politicians are bought and paid for by megacorps. They can’t really punish anyone without losing money themselves. In China, politicians are part of the CCP. If they don’t do what the CCP wants they have very serious consequences. Two systems, two very different yet serious problems.
Post reply on HN