Wells Fargo

   

The subject today is Wells Fargo. Yes you remember Wells Fargo. If you went as I did to the cinema when you were young. Wells Fargo was the stage coach Company which ran horse drawn coaches that thundering across the screen to the "he-harr" cry of the driver to his team of horses to pull more and keep up the schedule. Often you had cowboys or Indians racing behind shooting at the coach since apart from the passengers they also carried the takings of the small town bank.  This was the beginnings of a banking system of which Wells Fargo rose to be the third largest bank in the USA.
So from being the good guy with the baddies streaming in their wake, they are now the baddies having been caught creating false  accounts amongst the lowest rank of depositors and charging these people for accounts which were fraudulent and imaginary.
The CEO, John Stumpf appeared before a Senate Committee a couple of days ago and was thoroughly condemned by the committee for his stewardship of the bank over a period where over 2 million fake accounts including credit card accounts were falsely entered on the banks books . Whilst staff lower down the banking hierarchy have been indicted for the crime, he was allowed to escape criminal proceedings and its only today that he has resigned, with of course the comfort of the usual financial parachute in place to feather bed his future life that the dreadful deceit of the banking industry takes yet another turn.
It's a parallel universe to sit at the top of these powerful organisations where, not only do they seem immune from the law but irrespective of what they do are rewarded by separation packages which are worth more than a lifetimes earnings for the ordinary bank employee.
It's the immoral face of capitalism. It prospers regardless of the ignominy  regardless of public opinion, regardless of common law and the laws which would apply to us. Governments are complicit in the scandals by their lack of action, as we see, time and again, the senior members of a companies executive walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist.
How corrupt has our world become, how corrupt the real politik when real criminals are beyond the law whilst, for the ordinary man or woman, the parking ticket is rigorously enforced.