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Tag: mary sanchez

Wells Fargo Schemes Prove The Value Of Vigorous Bank Regulation

Wells Fargo kicked its public relations machine into gear after news broke that regulators fined the bank $185 million for creating up to 2 million fake accounts in the names of existing customers.

The company took out full-page ads in major publications and top executives made promises to adhere to the company’s “values.” The problem is, the financial giant’s values and business culture are all too evident in this debacle.

Regulators slapped the fine on Wells Fargo through a settlement after discovering that employees created fake email addresses, fraudulently applied for credit cards and moved unwitting customer’s money to the new accounts. The misbehavior earned bonuses and let employees meet aggressive sales quotas.

Yet so far, Wells Fargo remains in denial. Sure, it fired thousands of employees and refunded millions of dollars to the customers in whose names the accounts were fraudulently opened. However, its settlement with regulators does not require it to admit wrongdoing, and its top executive denies that its system of incentives contributed to the behavior.

This is as troubling as the original deceits. Because it signals that significant change, the sort of deep rewiring of attitudes and how they play out in policy, might not come.

CEO John Stumpf flatly insisted to the Wall Street Journal, “There was no incentive to do bad things.”

Why then, did Wells Fargo promptly dump the practice of sales goals to drive new business to its financial services? It’s doubtful that the heavy insistence on cross-selling was shuttered for appearances only.

Maybe Stumpf will be more forthcoming in his testimony Tuesday (Sept. 20) before the Senate Banking Committee. Or maybe it will take discovery from the U.S. attorney’s offices now opening investigations.

The 5,300 people Wells Fargo fired for their involvement in the scandal are believed to have charged the unwitting customers $1.5 million in fees for accounts they didn’t know they opened. They made 565,000 false credit card applications, sometimes closing the accounts as quickly as they were given credit for opening them. That’s called covering your tracks.

Such predatory practices don’t occur in a vacuum. Regulators believe the behavior continued over a period of about five years. No doubt, bosses up the chain of command were pleased and well compensated for the bogus new business and had little incentive to verify that it was on the level. That’s business culture.

At the top of that food chain was recently retired executive Carrie Tolstedt, who headed up the community banking sector. She left the firm with $124 million in stock and options. The lower level employees, who did wrong but were incentivized to do so, got fired. That, too, is business culture.

And it’s just one industry’s example of why the average working person feels systems are so set against them. It doesn’t matter that Wells Fargo refunded fees to people. Or that, in perspective, the 5,300 employees are a fraction of the company’s 270,000 total workforce.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have been trotting out plans to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – the very agency that helped bring this scandal to public light. That’s business culture operating in politics.

The Financial Choice Act, pushed by Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas, seeks to rollback many of the checks and balances set in place by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was enacted after the financial crisis of 2008. Many Democrats admit that Dodd-Frank, like many sweeping laws, could benefit from a rewrite of certain passages. However, the Wells Fargo script shows clearly that regulators must remain vigilant. And the congressional friends of the big banks must not be allowed to muzzle the public’s watchdog.

(Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.)

Photo: A Wells Fargo branch is seen in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, February 10, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young

Trump’s Immigration Harangue Sells Out America’s Finest Ideals

What a strange place our nation has come to when a candidate for president representing a major party, in a major policy speech, calls for “ideological certification” of immigrants.

If ever a candidate deserved “extreme vetting,” it’s Donald Trump. There are few policy proposals I can think of that are more un-American — a term that any defender of civil liberties must use advisedly — than the ones he made this week in a speech in Phoenix on immigration.

The image of America he conjured in Phoenix is as terrifying as it is untrue. It’s a country where “sanctuary cities” shelter undocumented immigrant killers who prey on defenseless citizens. Where the government invites dubious refugees from terrorist hotbeds without vetting them. Where the president has attempted to foist an illegal amnesty for undocumented immigrants and refuses to execute immigration law.

To Trump these are not mere executive failings; they are acts of betrayal. The rage with which he delivered his message on immigration is informed by the old stab-in-the-back fantasy so beloved by fascists of yore. President Obama and Hillary Clinton are subverting America, and they are using immigrants to do it.

This narrative works hand in glove with Trump’s racial scapegoating. Places where blacks and Latinos live, to him, are lawless hellscapes where predatory criminals breed, prey and hide. It’s not enough to point to crime rates, which are rising in some places while remaining well below historical peaks, or to point out that minority communities are disproportionately the victims of violent crime. No, Trump must present immigrant criminals as direct threats to white America.

So in Phoenix he paraded parents who lost their children to God-awful acts of violence (or mere car wrecks) in which the culprit was an illegal immigrant. He twisted the natural sympathy any decent person would feel for these grieving people into an indictment of every immigrant — legal, illegal or yet to come to our shores. All wound up complicit before Trump paused to catch a breath.

The speech was grotesque. Though his handlers gave Trump new terms to sprinkle in — “detainers,” “removal,” “bio-metrics” — to add a veneer of gravitas, the point was not to explain policy. It was to enflame hatred.

There is a policy story to be told, and when Trump tries to tell it he is compelled to lie. He has to pretend that immigrants are not being deported in record numbers and that much of immigration law and policy is already focused on deporting those with records of violent crime. He has to ignore the vetting process already in place for those seeking refuge in the United States, which is thorough and rigorous, taking up to two years to complete.

Much of the 10-point immigration plan Trump presented is simple white nativism. For example, he signaled a break with recent Republican Party tradition by calling for even legal immigration to be severely curtailed as well.

As a Los Angeles Times report put it, “the shift he advocates would greatly reduce immigration overall and move the U.S. from an immigration philosophy of allowing strivers from around the world to take advantage of American opportunities to one focused on bringing in people who already have money and job skills.”

Left unsaid was who will get to decide on an immigrant’s suitability, and according to what criteria, but it’s hardly a mystery. “It’s our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us,” Trump said.

Perfect. A man driven by an insatiable desire to be worshipped and feared will also set the standard for ideological correctness.

How a major party of this great nation nominated a person so unfit for the presidency, so pernicious, needs to be thoroughly understood before it’s too late.

That a broad swath of Americans has embraced his unapologetic racism is not surprising. And that others might be dragged along by Trump’s fear mongering — in a time of stagnant wages, gutted pensions, terrorism and chaos spreading around the world — makes a certain sense.

What should deeply trouble us is that a major political party was powerless to stop him, and that the free press, a cornerstone of American democracy, shrank for so long from calling his racism and dangerous authoritarian tendencies what they are.

Trump has maligned the spirit in which our republic was founded: that it should be a safe haven for all the world, where men and women could find freedom and opportunity.

There will be a reckoning for this. Whether that extends beyond the Republican Party remains to be seen.

Minorities Not Buying Trump’s Bogus Kumbaya Chorus

Americans love to blame the media for bias, for presenting a slanted view of reality.

And in at least one case, I’ll concur: They have done a terrible job of representing to the broader public what life is like for black and brown America.

The inaccurate impressions created by “if it bleeds, it leads” news coverage were amply evident in Donald Trump’s recent “outreach” effort to African-American voters. He sought to enumerate the various unfair afflictions blacks suffer in America — problems supposedly only he can fix — but exaggerated them to a point that was insulting.

Trump’s messaging style is blunt and simplistic. And he is clearly ignorant of what life is like outside the bubble of wealth he has floated in all of his 70 years. So it’s no surprise that his appeal to black voters would be both naive and offensive.

But it’s worth considering how American news coverage has inspired and supported Trump’s assumption that African-Americans and Latinos are overwhelmingly mired in poverty, can’t get jobs, dodge bullets every day and struggle to graduate high school.

Trump is taking cues from headlines and breaking news bulletins. Last weekend’s murder tally, the latest poverty statistics, reports of public school systems struggling to educate poor urban children: those stories are familiar. They have an impact, they address problems and they deserve attention. I’m not apologizing for covering a murder in lieu of a high school fundraiser.

But the usual news coverage does not tell the whole story of any community; nor does it even relate the most prevalent life stories. A headline will not read, “One black male killed in shooting: Everyone else in a two-block radius went to work or school, mowed their lawn, did some grocery shopping and ate dinner with their family as usual.”

So when Trump addressed African-Americans from a white Michigan exurb to ask for their votes, he cited a litany of woes most black voters don’t face and asked, “What the hell do you have to lose?” The implicit answer would seem to be: the same things most American voters have to lose — quite a bit.

Now Trump is trying this shtick on Latinos.

To a crowd in Tampa, Fla., he said, “To the Hispanic parent, you have a right to walk outside without being shot.”

Then he added: “What do you have to lose? I’ll fix it.”

Let’s be clear: Disproportionately, Latinos and African-Americans do fare worse than white households in many areas, such as employment, measures of health and educational attainment. They are disproportionately likely to be victims of violent crime. They have far less wealth and suffered much more in the housing crash and recession of the last eight years.

But that doesn’t mean that all members of these communities are in dire straits and in need of salvation by a politician making promises. The majority of black households, like white ones, are considered middle class. Black college enrollment rates now equal those of whites (but not graduation rates). Many of the most pressing issues to black and Latino voters are — guess what! — the very ones that are pressing to white voters.

By getting this wrong, Trump is broadcasting how little he knows about the communities he’s pretending to court.

Nor does he get that the demographic cleavages that persist are tied to the continuing impact of racist attitudes and once legal segregation and institutional racism. To black and Latino listeners, the omission screams volumes.

Trump’s outreach smacks of being contrived. If it were sincere, he’d be acting differently. I’d recommend that he sit silently among minorities in their own communities. Be the only white face in a church filled with African-Americans. Attend a Sunday service and a funeral of a beloved community member. Hang for another hour as people mingle upon leaving the sanctuary.

Sit around with a bunch of women making tamales and watch the interaction as members of different generations parade in and out of the kitchen. Talk to fourth-generation American with a Latino surname who doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish. Really hear his or her story.

People develop familiarity and comfort levels outside of their normal circles only through sustained interactions. Even very adept politicians can’t fake it. And Trump’s level of emotional intelligence is as low as his polling numbers with black and Latino voters.

In case it isn’t obvious, Trump isn’t really directing these appeals to African-Americans and Latinos. He is talking to white audiences, trying to dispel the air of racism that has hung around his campaign from the very start. The pity is that many of them don’t know any better.

Photo: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., August 25, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Low-Wage Workers Want Respect, Regular Shifts And Better Wages

Between monthly meetings at an old church, they stay in touch on Facebook, bonded together by common struggles.

At work, they keep their heads down, grappling with retaliatory managers who cut their hours for slight infractions like needing to pick up a sick child from school. They deal with customers who proposition them sexually, with coworkers who demean and belittle them.

They call themselves the Fannie Lou Hamer Women’s Committee, after the civil rights leader. They number about 100.

They are low-wage workers in Kansas City, employed by America’s favorite fast food franchises and sit-down restaurants, as well as by daycare centers and home healthcare providers.

If you think the fight for raising the minimum wage is simply about paychecks, let these women educate you. They’re vulnerable and they know it. Beyond higher pay, they seek dignity.

The career gripes of the average middle-class woman don’t hold a candle to what these ladies face daily. Their workplace stories are a catalogue of routine disregard of basic employment law. Sexual harassment is the most egregious, but there are other indignities, such as the mother who got hassled about wanting to leave work when her child had to go to the hospital.

The committee’s meetings are a bit covert. The members, after all, need to keep their jobs and are highly vulnerable to the whims of the managers they are organizing to resist. They’re working to build support among employees at stores so that if any employee presses a grievance she will have allies. The women envision eventually having a union.

They all aspire to “really good jobs” — such as work in warehouses, where full-time slots and benefits like paid time off, maternity leave and even a regular schedule can be found. But they say they don’t usually qualify for those positions.

Why not? Because mostly they have high school educations and no trade training. Many are from families of multi-generational poverty and unstable family networks. They were born into these situations, and it’s very hard to escape. Desire to work hard does not do the trick.

They say they are routinely hired at lower wages than men with similar experience and education levels. And the men tend to be the ones given the chances to advance.

Data bears out the frustration these women feel. Women make up two-thirds of the nearly 20 million low-wage workers in America, according to the National Women’s Law Center, which defines low-wage work as that earning $10.10 or less. A 2014 study of the center found that women in such positions, working full time, have a 13 percent wage gap with men — higher for minority women.

This has dire consequences for the future of the economy and family stability — especially given that low-wage jobs are the ones have returned in higher numbers in the post-recession economy.

Sexual harassment is pervasive and well-documented. A study by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United found that significant number of women feared “financial loss, public humiliation or job termination if they tried to report sexual harassment from management and customers.”

One recent meeting of the Fannie Lou Hamer Women’s Committee focused on that reality. Groping of their bodies and outright solicitations for sex acts, things that would send white-collar women running to human resources, are brushed aside by low-wage employers.

“They definitely take advantage,” one woman said of supervisors. They hold incredible power over the women simply by controlling when they are scheduled to work and how many hours they can get.

Another woman eloquently made the argument that raising their wages and ensuring schedules with regular hours would ultimately aid society.

“I promise you, we’d be better parents,” she said, detailing how it would mean to be able to stick to a set a schedule and avoid shuffling kids between friends and relatives with ever-changing work shifts, not to mention having a larger financial cushion.

A handful of the committee’s members recently returned from a five-day training session in Chicago, the Midwest School for Women Workers.

There they learned about historic labor movements, employment law and labor standards. But what impressed them the most, was learning from female labor rights leaders from Mexico and Turkey.

“I encourage you to use whatever struggles you are a part of and let it make you stronger every day,” one of the labor activists encouraged the larger group.

The women of the Fannie Lou Hamer Women’s Committee take solace in the fact that they are not being targeted by government officials or being beaten or disappeared, threats the foreign organizers faced.

But their lives are grim enough, and middle-class America, stressed as it is, owes it to them to guarantee conditions where all can work with dignity and financial security.

Photo: Tracy Duve serves nachos at Tony’s I-75 Restaurant in Birch Run, Michigan, October 15, 2006. REUTERS/Molly Riley

        About The National Memo
    
The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
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