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Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

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Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#51

Post by jagged-chisel »

guerby wrote: post #40
Ensorceled wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shareholders hold shares by choice, so they don't "have to" do anything. That's not how pensions, ETFs, index funds or pretty much anything works.

I wonder what would happen if pensions, funds and other would pass through voting rights of the share they own to the fund share owners. This way if you own a share in a fund or have a right in pension, if the fund chooses to buy shares of company A, when there is a shareholder vote of company A instead having the fund manager to vote, the fund manager would transmit this voting rights to you.

This would overwhelm the Little Guy, and he just wouldn’t vote. The reality is that few will go through the hundreds of companies to vote on all the things.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#53

Post by amelius »

blippage wrote: post #23
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.

My other suggestion is that to practise banking, one needs a license, which can be revoked. Now that I think of it, Taleb's suggested that banking should be a civil servant job. So, no financial engineering or bonuses, just boring paperwork. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 (IIRC), the role of regular banking and hedge fund activities was split in two. The idea is, of course, that if all the fancy derivati…

> to practise banking, one needs a license, which can be revoked.

Most banks are "too big to fail".

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#54

Post by Joeri »

BirAdam wrote: post #20
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.

If in America politicians are bought and paid for by large corporations, does it mean the country is no longer a democracy?

Or is it still a democracy and the blame ultimately lies with voters who vote on corporate-backed candidates?

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#55

Post by charlescearl »

Instead of wasting resources punishing arbitrary capitalists (the next Wells CEO is no doubt biding its time), the state should seize some portion of the bank's operations and use them for the creation of operationally resourced public banks [1]. Then use this as a basis for the creation of plan for responsible community re-investment.

As Lenin observed:

" It is absurd to control and regulate deliveries of grain, or the production and distribution of goods generally, without controlling and regulating bank operations. It is like trying to snatch at odd kopeks and closing one’s eyes to millions of rubles. Banks nowadays are so closely and intimately bound up with trade (in grain and everything else) and with industry that without "laying hands" on the banks nothing of any value, nothing “revolutionary-democratic”, can be accomplished. " [2]

[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/volume25.htm...

[2] Collected Works, Volume 25, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/04....

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#56

Post by danuker »

rcxdude wrote: post #30
imtringued wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is already case, it isn't formalized though. If you want to be a bank executive you must prove both theoretical and practical skills and management experience. That is already a steep hill. Also, any criminal record, especially related to banking or money makes it harder or outright impossible to qualify.

You can also be straight-up banned from the industry, which has the same kind of effect as revoking a license, but doesn't really seem to have been enough of a deterrent.

Banks define their own rules. There is no jail time because unethical behavior is legal or minimally punished.

https://www.finance-watch.org/still-going-round-in-circles-t...

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#58

Post by Ensorceled »

guerby wrote: post #40
Ensorceled wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shareholders hold shares by choice, so they don't "have to" do anything. That's not how pensions, ETFs, index funds or pretty much anything works.

I wonder what would happen if pensions, funds and other would pass through voting rights of the share they own to the fund share owners. This way if you own a share in a fund or have a right in pension, if the fund chooses to buy shares of company A, when there is a shareholder vote of company A instead having the fund manager to vote, the fund manager would transmit this voting rights to you.

I would literally get hundreds of votes a year from all the index funds in my savings plans.

Everybody would give management their proxy, same as fund managers do now, or corporate governorship would grind to a halt as they never reached quorum at shareholder votes.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#59

Post by throw101010 »

anonu wrote: post #37
rixrax wrote: post #12

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.goo…

It's viewed as the "cost of doing business"

And a good way for governments to take their share on the violations/crimes these bankers are committing.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#60

Post by kqr »

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.

Graeber has an observation on a different part of this: the penalties are never greater than the profit that triggered the penalties. We're basically telling the bankers that "it's okay as long as the government gets a cut of the loot".
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