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Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

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Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#111

Post by mastax »

kqr wrote: post #60
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".

> the penalties are never greater than the profit that triggered the penalties

Are you sure? In the most recent case they had to return all $2B taken from customers and pay a $1.7B fine.

I'd be willing to look at evidence to the contrary. (Cynicism is not evidence)

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#112

Post by jmholla »

gyulai wrote: post #109
rsynnott wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Clinton repealed it Hadn’t realised he was taking a break from the presidency and interning for the Republican Party at the time. (The repeal was of course a Republican bill with voting more or less along party lines…)

...sorry, just recounting something from memory I had read a long time ago, with the original source unavailable to me right now. Maybe the original had some bias, or I misremembered or something. Thanks for the correction.

He did sign it, so you're not completely off base here.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#113

Post by Pigalowda »

mschuster91 wrote: post #105
Pigalowda wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America we do things differently. We carefully organize our recycling but instead of it being recycled it is sent to China, who extracts the tiny amount of value it can from it, and then buries or dumps the rest in the ocean. There’s some nice articles about it. I’m stupid enough that I still performatively wash out the glass and aluminum so the workers in China have to do less. But what is a West coast American i…

I thought you were joking, then I looked up numbers, and WTF, y'all only recycle 33% of your glass [1] and barely half of your soda drink cans [2]. [1] https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recy... [2] https://www.bcg.com/publications/2022/whats-holding-back-alu...

The first article does blame the consumer education and habits, which is funny. When a company bids on a contract from the government it is much easier and cheaper to collect the “recycling” and ship to China for pseudo-sorting and disposal rather than developing the infrastructure to properly recycle. Cheapest bid wins here in the US so it gets shipped out and the “uneducated” consumer gets the blame for the policy.

In the end how can you encourage someone who does not recycle to do so with this ridiculous reality in place? There’s a nice NYT article about it from a few years ago.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#114

Post by rnk »

mastax wrote: post #111
kqr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> the penalties are never greater than the profit that triggered the penalties Are you sure? In the most recent case they had to return all $2B taken from customers and pay a $1.7B fine. I'd be willing to look at evidence to the contrary. (Cynicism is not evidence)

They already celebrated their earnings in the past, people got bonus or raises or promos on their "performance" using the fruits of their bad behavior. Probably there is different leadership now. The new leadership can use these things to explain any slow quarter, then they try to write off any problems they have now and combine it with this problem (and blame the old person).

You see this cycle again and again. Until companies are killed or leadership is fired, and loses their potential for future employment/mayhem, goes to jail - if there is no immediate serious personal repercussions or the company might die, then there won't be much change.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#115

Post by mastax »

rnk wrote: post #114
mastax wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the penalties are never greater than the profit that triggered the penalties Are you sure? In the most recent case they had to return all $2B taken from customers and pay a $1.7B fine. I'd be willing to look at evidence to the contrary. (Cynicism is not evidence)

They already celebrated their earnings in the past, people got bonus or raises or promos on their "performance" using the fruits of their bad behavior. Probably there is different leadership now. The new leadership can use these things to explain any slow quarter, then they try to write off any problems they have now and combine it with this problem (and blame the old person). You see this cycle again and again. Unti…

Okay but that sounds more like a principal agent problem as noted in the root comment rather than the "punishment is smaller than the crime" problem I was questioning.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#117

Post by thinking4real »

mschuster91 wrote: post #50
thinking4real wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The culture goes even further. We demand individuals to do pointless self flogging rituals like tediously organizing their recycling just to have it be buried in china. Meanwhile corporations are free to waste as much plastic product as they care to without repercussion. America is all about squeezing the individual for the few in power and wealth.

> We demand individuals to do pointless self flogging rituals like tediously organizing their recycling just to have it be buried in china. German here. It's not that hard to separate paper, glass, metal, plastics and remainder waste. Paper, glass and metal are recycled at very high rates (over 80% for paper and glass [1][2] and over 90% for metal), and the separation between plastics and remainder waste allows trash…

You should do some deeper research into how what recycling really is.

It is that hard when the vast majority of it is just buried. And the take that it needs to be at the consumer level is corporate brainwashing - if corporations aren’t allowed to use plastic excessively, that would alleviate waste far more than any recycling campaign ever has.

Just make sure to consider the sources you’re using to formulate your opinions.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#118

Post by barbazoo »

thinking4real wrote: post #24
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.

The culture goes even further. We demand individuals to do pointless self flogging rituals like tediously organizing their recycling just to have it be buried in china. Meanwhile corporations are free to waste as much plastic product as they care to without repercussion. America is all about squeezing the individual for the few in power and wealth.

Obligatory mentioning of the fact that recycling is a very local process and not everything ends up in China or in the dump.

Re: Wells Fargo Penalties Since 2000: $22B

#119

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

Maybe more novel punishments, like if you do X, then all senior staff, CEO, board members, VPs, etc are restricted for a period of x years from using private jets, charters, or business class in commercial airlines. If they fly it MUST be in economy class; this applies to both work and personal travel.

Let's start taking away the perks. Golf course memberships are next - they can only use lower tier public courses. Next are restaurants and lodgings, 3 stars or lower.

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