Wells Fargo

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In the aftermath of the financial crisis, Wells Fargo, the nation’s most profitable bank, suffered from what Dorner might call a “moral compass” deficit. The bank had been accused of targeting black and Latino customers for higher fees and riskier mortgages. By 2012, Wells Fargo was facing bias suits from the NAACP, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and the cities of Memphis and Baltimore.

The testimony of whistleblowers left little doubt about the bank’s guilt. Defecting subprime loan officers testified that the bank targeted black churches and community centers, provided financial incentives for loan officers to steer blacks and Latinos towards subprime loans, and charged minority borrowers extraneous fees. Referencing the bank’s logo, whistleblower Beth Jacobson described working in Wells Fargo’s subprime division as “riding the stagecoach to hell.”

Wells Fargo never saw the inside of a courtroom. Instead, in 2012 the Department of Justice folded many of the suits into a $175 million settlement deal. As part of that settlement, Wells Fargo was ordered to spend $50 million helping low-income and minority homebuyers purchase homes in regions that the bank had previously barraged with toxic loans.

But the bank saw an opportunity in its legal troubles. In a cynical act of public relations judo, Wells Fargo refashioned its greatest weakness – a record of racist subprime lending – into an advertising strategy.

Wells Fargo used the $50 million penalty to create a home ownership initiative called CityLIFT, a down payment assistance program that distributes grants to low-income families. The bank aggressively promotes CityLIFT as evidence of a corporate commitment to economic recovery and low-income home ownership, and has launched versions of the program in the San Francisco Bay Area, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Prince George’s County in Maryland, Chicago, New York, and New Jersey.
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read more @
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/11/wells-fargos-makeover/
 
French 75 said:
They should have been broken up. All big banks should be.
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A right winger talking about "Monopolies"!
Progress!

Good news man. Never mention that you said that in a Right Wing circle though. They will stone and call you a Liberal Socialist.
 
Broken into what? How big is 'not too big to leverage the piss out of debt, become argueably individually essential to our economy, and mask their dealings within layers of actions'

Op is about something any suitably large bussiness can do. Image enhancement.

not letting an opportunity go to waste, even if your own greed caused it.

Should we break them up like Fannie and Freddie?
 
Dionaea said:
Broken into what? How big is 'not too big to leverage the piss out of debt, become argueably individually essential to our economy, and mask their dealings within layers of actions'

Op is about something any suitably large bussiness can do. Image enhancement.

not letting an opportunity go to waste, even if your own greed caused it.

Should we break them up like Fannie and Freddie?
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Break them up much furthet than Freddie and Fannie. So much so that they can only control 10% of the market.
 
"Too big to fail" = "Too big to exist". Another thing I've been saying since before the collapse. Our economy would be safer and our government less likely to cowtow to them if we simply forced them into much smaller entities none of which would kill our economy if they fail.
 
I agree we shouldnt bail them out, but im skeptical that their small size would prevent anything.
 
Dionaea said:
I agree we shouldnt bail them out, but im skeptical that their small size would prevent anything.
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Alaska's banks didn't need bailing out because most of them are smaller, local banks. Wells Fargo is the only major bank in the state, and it bought out a locally owned bank with very conservative lending policies. I worked for them in commercial mortgage lending.

Size does matter in the case of banks.
 
Anti-Party said:
A right winger talking about "Monopolies"!
Progress!

Good news man. Never mention that you said that in a Right Wing circle though. They will stone and call you a Liberal Socialist.
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If it weren’t for the idiotic BIG government regulatory system and its “Good Ole Boy” network of crony banking thieves, the sanity of true capitalism would never have allowed such an absurdity as “To Big To Fail.” The fucking thieves would have failed and the smaller bankers would have picked up the pieces by now and the economy would be back on track with a 6% growth rate and devoid of Ben Shalom Bernanke’s ungodly infusion of funny money into the economy creating the next INFLATION BUBBLE.
 
In a BIG socialist BIG government environment such as the United States we get the absurdities of Dodd/Frank, when in all sanity all we need is a constitutional amendment limiting the economic size and scope of every individual capital/moneyed institution.

If we’re too fucking stupid to follow religiously the sanity and dictates of ”TRUE” capitalism, we should at least consider the fact that we need a constitutional amendment to limit the size and scope of the banking institutions.

True capitalism would have done the job righteously and sanely and cleared the stupidity, fraud and abuse quickly and our economy would be fully recovered by now.

“We have met the enemy and he is us!”
 
Dionaea said:
I agree we shouldnt bail them out, but im skeptical that their small size would prevent anything.
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It would increase competition, which is always a good thing. It'd also prevent them from having special laws put in place to protect themselves.
 
Rose said:
read more @
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/11/wells-fargos-makeover/
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I'm amused by the leftist theory that these supposed victims were coerced into subprime loans they couldn't afford.

But in this damned if they do, damned if they don't world we now wallow in, we pretend that there wasn't pressure by politicians to force institutions into lowering their loan standards so that minorities could "participate."

Now after the ponzi scheme of loan packaging, led by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, collapses, the banks who were pressured by these political hacks are the villains and now must give back the money borrowers never had and be broken apart because gullible dimwits don't understand basic economics and how Government interferes many times with negative consequences.

Here's the real issue; most of the people hurt in this scam comprised two classes of perfectly willing participants who were willing to gamble that the party would continue; (1) speculators who used low down, low interest loans with a short term balloon payment to profit from an accelerating appreciation; and (2) home owners who knew they could not afford the balloon payment or higher future interest but were willing to gamble to get into a home and take advantage of the market.

After getting burned knowing they were gambling, they now dupe gullible politicians pandering to low information voters into using tax payer money to bail their bad decisions out.

It's stupid, it is retarded and it will only lead to more of the same. It is tantamount to building a major city in a hurricane zone below sea level, then being surprised when levies fail submerging the city then blaming George Bush for it all.

You dimwits cannot begin to comprehend how stupid you all look and sound because you're uneducated dullards who run to, and whine to, the very Government that created the mess like the dependent wards of the State you are all becoming.

Wells Fargo didn't force these people to do anything; the dimwits gladly signed on thinking that; (1) they would profit from a market spiraling out of control; or (2) someone would bail them out if things didn't work out; or the most obvious (3) they had little skin in the game and would just walk away leaving the bank holding the bag.

Carry on.
 
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