Wells Fargo Sued For Ripping Off LA Customers
Yesterday, the city of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit against the $284 billion bank Wells Fargo alleging that the company pressured employees into defrauding unwitting customers. Isn’t that something?
Vice and Bank of America Are Making Overdraft Fees Cool as Hell
Vice is a company that would like you to think it is cool all of the time. In fact, Vice is only cool when it does stories about Ebola and stuff. It is not so cool when it tries to be the cool face of Bank of America, which would like to rip you off.
Elizabeth Warren Is Right About Everything
This afternoon, Massachusetts Senator and presidential non-candidate Elizabeth Warren spoke to a crowd of 200 sweaty fans at the Strand book store in Manhattan. Everything she said was true, which is fairly remarkable, for a politician.
America the Unequal Can't Last Forever
America has money. Which is better than not having money. But all of the money in America is going to the rich. This is our basic problem.
How JPMorgan Robbed a Church
A church that gave its money to JPMorgan Chase to manage says that the bank robbed it blind. Here is a useful window into how legalized robbery on Wall Street works.
"You've seen a little bit of a tension between capital and labor," says Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Hey, let's not go overboard.
Andrew Ross Sorkin Is Too Credulous For Journalism
Credulous—adj.—"willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullible."
In a new study, "bankers were about as honest as anyone else — until they were reminded that they were bankers."
Bill Gross, the head of bond firm Pimco, was paid $290 million last year—and then got fired this year! Everybody knows that the financial world is the purest example of pay accruing to winners solely by merit.
Bankers Can't Even Fucking Party Any More
Used to be that bankers were men—big men, who were at least bluffing at having big dicks, who worked themselves half to death, then partied like rock stars, if rock stars were incredibly boring conversationalists. Nowadays? Banks are trying to make their employees fucking church ladies.
JPMorgan Chase asking for lavish public subsidies to build its new high rise towers in Manhattan just goes to show why such subsidies should be banned, and also why JPMorgan Chase is not all that popular, in general.
The price tag for making the "Too Big to Fail" banks somewhat more stable could reach $870 billion. Before the banks complain about this cost, they should consider the alternatives.
Recently defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is joining an investment bank, where he will get rich advising corporate clients on deals. Meanwhile, enrollment in the food stamp program, for which Cantor voted to cut funding, is down. So everyone is doing well.
In Zurich, prostitutes and strip clubs are seeing declines in business, now that "Bankers really have to show who the client was, why they spent the money and was it really necessary." Once again, banking regulations hurt the little guy.
A former Goldman Sachs banker who wrote a high-minded book about the firm's ethical decline is now in the business of offering usurious loans to desperate small businesses. What an interesting career path.
Wall Street Math: Raise Pay No Matter What
It's not an easy time for gigantic Wall Street banks. Not easy, I tell you! In the challenging post-recession business environment, thousands of Wall Street layoffs have not been enough to keep profits high. Where's all the money going?
Five Good Candidates to Succeed Jamie Dimon
Jamie Dimon, the bulletproof head of JPMorgan Chase, has throat cancer. Though his prognosis is good, speculation about who will succeed him is already rampant. Allow us to offer some ideas for successors who are not "just another banker in a suit."
The trend of Wall Street banks coddling their disgustingly weak employees continues: Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said that the death of one young banker last year after round-the-clock work "has caused everyone to step back and say, 'Hey, have we got this right?'"
An examination of 400 private equity firms by government regulators found that "more than half... charged unjustified fees and expenses" to companies they own. If you've seen the Goodfellas scene where they suck the business dry then burn it down, you understand what's happening here.
You Are Paying an Insane Amount in Overdraft Fees
In 2010, federal regulators banned some of the more egregiously customer-screwing bank fees. In response, banks are just using overdraft fees to continue sucking you dry.
