Juggling Dynamite

Another day, another Senate hearing into revolting, illegal and financially destructive activities at a too-big-to govern bank, where executives extracted hundreds of millions for years while keeping their jobs and perks, while customers and low-level employees paid the price.  Unlike many previous hearings, most of the senators have come out swinging on this one (I guess the public outrage is too loud for them to do otherwise this time).

But Senator Elizabeth Warren in particular was a stand out as she landed Pecora-like blows on CEO John Stump. Here is a video link to her full segment now on Youtube.

Dishonesty and hiding information are major themes of this year’s US presidential contest, with both leading candidates apparently adept at deception.  Still in this contest of liars, it seems Clinton–the career politician is scrutinized more than Trump–the career salesman.  According to a recent fact-checking study by Politifact,  just 4% of what Trump said on the campaign trail was  true, compared with 23% for Clinton, while 35% of Trump’s statements were rated “false” compared with 11% for Clinton. The salespuff standard may be working in Trump’s favor with voters.  See Why Trump gets away with huge lies while Clinton gets trashed for little fibs:

…Hillary Clinton’s one and only image in the public mind is that of a politician. She was seen as a more politically minded First Lady. And she was seen as a more politically ambitious U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. We don’t look at her in any other context. Not only are politicians held to a higher truth-telling standard than salespeople, we don’t even focus on their “product” or policies all that much to balance what they say. For the most part, politicians are what they say and salespeople are what they sell. It’s the best way to understand why Trump gets away with some much of what he says. Ultimately, that’s not his product.

Sure, most of us don’t like boastful salespeople, but it doesn’t mean we won’t buy what they’re selling. Compared to the tough scrutiny his fellow Republican candidates and Clinton endure, the salesman standard is better. It’s infinitely better. We don’t fact check the commercials or the guys yelling in those commercials. Trump knows that. So, he’s playing the role of that guy in the commercial.

Today Wells Fargo CEO John Stompf is appearing before the Senate Banking Committee to answer questions on widespread fraud at many of the bank’s branches where over 5000 employees have now been fired for opening fake accounts and credit applications in order to hit their monthly product cross-selling targets. (you can watch the hearing live starting at 10am here.)

Columnists at the Wall Street Journal have come up with a list of the 10 most pressing questions that the Senate Banking Committee (well that is, the members who are not so purchased by finance that they still have some self-respect) should ask the Wells commander-in-chief:

1) Wells Fargo and regulators say that the bank has fired about 5,300 employees over a five-year period because of the aggressive sales tactics. Who was the highest-level executive responsible for the problems and is that person still at the bank? Do you believe any of the 5,300 broke the law?

2) Wells Fargo called its cross-selling initiative “Gr-Eight” to encourage employees to sell each household eight products. Is that number good for the average customer? Can you name eight products the average customer needs from his or her bank?

3) Wells Fargo this month decided to scrap all product-based sales goals in retail branches. Why did you wait so long? Are such goals generally a bad idea, or were the sales goals simply set too high?.

..read the whole list here

And while Stumpf will most certainly offer the now well-worn c-suite plea denying any knowledge or responsibility of the illegal activities under his watch, at least a couple of the senators will correctly point out that in collecting many, many millions in performance based compensation, Stompf either knew or he ought to have known about how his employees were hitting the aggressive sales targets given to them by Strompf and his management team.  Yes John, that is what they pay you the big bucks for…