Our thoughts on Wells Fargo

One has to wonder when WE were actually rooting Elizabeth Warren on. Unfortunately for the CEO of Wells Fargo, instead of looking from the outside in at the company, he has been looking from the inside of the company out. This simply means that they forgot the #1 rule of public relations. It’s not what you think, it’s what the rest of the world thanks. And when your industry is already in the cross hairs, when you have been found that your company screwed the little guy and when you know you are going to face incoming fire on Capital Hill, one needs to get out in front of it. Wells Fargo has not been proactive in making things right. It is not good enough to say it will not happen any more and it is not good enough for the company to pay the fine.  We we believe that before getting in front of the committee, the CEO should have cut his pay in half during the time the violations occurred. This shows that he was willing to show, not just say…”the buck stops here.”  We believe the company needed to meet with the person who was most responsible who is now getting over $100 million severance and convince her to cut severance in half. No one would have been worse for wear as both still made tens of millions. But when you are in your own bubble, amazingly these very smart people show no ability to understand that this whole episode sucks and people in power are going to draw blood…and draw blood they did…and deservedly so. On top of all this, 5300 underlings were fired but we hear that not one in senior management has been removed. And now, things worsen. Talk of criminal investigations now pervade the air. The millions and millions of dollars the company spends on advertising now pale in comparison to the bad press the company now gets.  It’s never too late to get in front of a bad situation but so far, nothing doing.