Can We Please Just Burn Them to the Ground?

I am referring, of course to Wells Fargo, which once again has to been caught systematically defrauding its customers, and fined a record $3,700,000,000.00.

Given the massive fines paid by the criminal enterprise masquerading as a financial institution (but I repeat myself) in the past, it is highly that this will not deter them.

The senior executives should be frog marched out of their  offices in handcuffs, and the corporation should be dissolved, their shareholders should be wiped out, and the existing infrastructure, banks and the like, should be broken up into small pieces with geographic scope:

Wells Fargo’s yearslong mistreatment of its customers has resulted in another record-breaking fine and a warning that more restrictions on its ability to do business could soon follow.

On Tuesday, the bank agreed to pay $1.7 billion in penalties and another $2 billion in damages to settle claims that it engaged in an array of banking violations over the last decade that harmed millions of consumers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

The latest developments contribute to a picture, years in the making, of Wells Fargo as one of America’s worst-run big banks. For decades, the 170-year-old bank has struggled to fix its practices despite run-ins with regulators, even as employees and customers continued to identify new problems.

The consumer protection bureau said Wells Fargo did not record customer payments on home and auto loans properly, wrongfully repossessed some borrowers’ cars and homes and charged overdraft fees even when customers had enough money to cover purchases they made with their bank cards. Wells Fargo stopped the conduct this year as part of a larger effort to clean up other unlawful practices stretching back to 2011, the filing said.

The fine is the largest ever imposed by the regulator, breaking a previous record of $1 billion, also set by an action against Wells Fargo. It brings the total penalties the government has levied against the bank for mistreating customers and investors to $6.2 billion since 2016 and almost $20 billion since the financial crisis.

………

The consumer protection bureau’s director, Rohit Chopra, told reporters on Tuesday that the action against the bank “should not be read as a sign that Wells Fargo has moved past its longstanding problems or that the C.F.P.B.’s work here is done.”

………

“Wells Fargo’s rinse-repeat cycle of violating the law has harmed millions of American families,” Mr. Chopra said in a statement. “This is an important initial step for accountability and long-term reform of this repeat offender.”

Burn them to the ground, salt the earth.

The DoJ, SEC, CFPB, OCC, etc. should do good here.

I know that you are asking here, "What is good?" To quote Arnold Schwartenegger, it is to, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!"