First of all, let me apologize for putting profanity in a blog title. But after I read the Wells Fargo bank story, I just could not come up with a better title. The bank was using fraud to swindle money from its customers by opening fake accounts and causing people to give lot of unnecessary fees. Now, this problem is not peculiar to Wells Fargo, I believe all big banks in the U.S. engage in these practices. The Citi bank was charging $12 per month to my account because it was below some arbitrary limit that they had before you could get "free" banking. Basically, they had 500 dollars of mine with them, and they were charging me $12 per month because according to them, the account must have $5000 in it before no fee is charged. Where in the world can you have such a great business model? Would you not want to be in a business where you get people to deposit money with you and charge them for that. This is the perfect business model. It is not like $500 is a large piece of bag filled with sand that they have to carry around with them and thus they are charging you $12 for that every month. The whole business model depends on aggressive sales tactics and fees and selling people shady products without their knowledge.
Because of the nationalization of their banking sector, countries like India escaped the 2008 financial crisis caused by these evil private banks. Agreed that when you walk in an Indian bank, nobody tries to kiss your ass. But the flip side is that they are also not trying to sell you some shady products while shaking hands and smiling profusely. As usual, there are trade-offs in life.
Why such an egregious title for this post? While I was reading this whole - nothing to be shocked about if you understand the system - Wells Fargo fiasco, I came across news items like how much money "poor" Warren Buffet lost because of Wells Fargo stock taking a temporary hit and then I thought of this moron who goes to Omaha every year to see his deity up-close. And how this dude described to me that he saw his deity in the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting. Every country has its holy men, the U.S. has its holy men too.
Because of the nationalization of their banking sector, countries like India escaped the 2008 financial crisis caused by these evil private banks. Agreed that when you walk in an Indian bank, nobody tries to kiss your ass. But the flip side is that they are also not trying to sell you some shady products while shaking hands and smiling profusely. As usual, there are trade-offs in life.
Why such an egregious title for this post? While I was reading this whole - nothing to be shocked about if you understand the system - Wells Fargo fiasco, I came across news items like how much money "poor" Warren Buffet lost because of Wells Fargo stock taking a temporary hit and then I thought of this moron who goes to Omaha every year to see his deity up-close. And how this dude described to me that he saw his deity in the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting. Every country has its holy men, the U.S. has its holy men too.
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