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Perp Returns to the Scene of the Crime 3/17/23


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My brother was in from Texas, so my sister flew up from SoCal so that the three of us could spend 3 hours at Wells Fargo completing the paperwork to identify us a successor trustees. To get to this stage required 4 previous hours, and a trip to Oakland to obtain a letter from a doctor too busy or indifferent to put it in the mail. The whole effort had almost collapsed anew when Wells legal told my in-branch contact over the phone that because the doctor’s letter did not specify “financial incapacity” (only, “incapacity”…), that it would not suffice. I dropped my only f-bomb, indicated that Wells now was establishing itself as the only party with authority over my father & family’s money, and that my next step was “to escalate.” I generously did not mention the history of dormant accounts.

It took three hours Friday to establish the basis for us to write our signatures four times.

As a child, my parents opened a savings account for me when I was in 2nd grade, at a small local bank called American Savings & Loans. My mom would take me in to deposit my little cash, and I would watch my little account balance grow. It was a powerful lesson. 

That bank was acquired by Crocker, which in turn was acquired by Wells, which was my bank as I went off to college. In grad school, something odd happened: a monthly fee appeared on my statements. I called and it was represented as some bullshit “courtesy monitoring service” to which I had agreed. As a beyond-broke grad student, I told them I had never agreed to any such service, and they reversed it. But I was pissed.

Got married within months, and happily consolidated my paltry cash with my wife’s paltry cash in her BofA account: wanted nothing ever again to do with Wells. BofA unsurprisingly turned out to be a predictable piece of shit: we waited very patiently to buy a house and damn near bottom-ticked the cycle Doc top-ticked live on this site from Florida with his freaking open house with cookies (and he did not accept the highest bid, IIRC). Having carried hefty balances, having cycled a ton of salary & bonus earnings for 10 years through our accounts, with sterling credit, and with enough cash to buy our house outright but preferring the flexibility of a conforming loan, BofA refused to originate the loan. It was peak-pain for Cali housing and BofA would not do our business. We found a mortgage broker who would, bought the house with a $417K loan, and immediately closed our BofA accounts in favor a small local bank, which… was of course acquired by a regional bank this past summer, just like my little 2nd grade thrift was.

Fuck the Big Banks. Fuck ‘em to hell. I sort of abandoned this site and financial news engagement after 2009 for a long spell because it was so grotesquely handled. Paulson deftly portrayed the worst-case as the most-likely case to leverage through public backstopping of his buddy’s excesses. Several Big Banks should have been sold off to the smaller, more responsibly run banks for dimes or pennies on the dollar. Carved up and sold out. As creative destruction was intended, Capitalism’s redeeming mechanism. And to instill a generation of terror & fear in finance. Instead within a dozen years, “risk-free” rates were effectively set at zero. Of course they were. And speculative idiocy reigned. Of course it did.   

So, here we are anew. Banks in distress, after years of risk-taking and obscene/unearned bonus-paying, all pursued in the moral-hazard shadow of the GFC. “Too Big to Fail” isn’t a defect: it is the crowning feature that assures private losses are absorbed on the public ledger. Of course reckless uninsured depositors at SVB were backstopped. We know where this all leads. We all know that DC will take care of Wall Street.

Plus ça change….

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1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

Doc

You are right of course. I was only referring to recognition.

Yes, but the idea that monetary policy works with a lag is universally accepted as gospel. So I like to point out that it's wrong. We could debate if it works with a lag versus inflation, but even there as soon as the Fed began to shrink the balance sheet the CPI and other measures began to come down a hair. It's just that the numbers are still way too high, and we had the US Treasury standing in by drawing down its cash account at times. 

It's really wild out there right now. 

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1 hour ago, Jimi said:

My brother was in from Texas, so my sister flew up from SoCal so that the three of us could spend 3 hours at Wells Fargo completing the paperwork to identify us a successor trustees. To get to this stage required 4 previous hours, and a trip to Oakland to obtain a letter from a doctor too busy or indifferent to put it in the mail. The whole effort had almost collapsed anew when Wells legal told my in-branch contact over the phone that because the doctor’s letter did not specify “financial incapacity” (only, “incapacity”…), that it would not suffice. I dropped my only f-bomb, indicated that Wells now was establishing itself as the only party with authority over my father & family’s money, and that my next step was “to escalate.” I generously did not mention the history of dormant accounts.

It took three hours Friday to establish the basis for us to write our signatures four times.

As a child, my parents opened a savings account for me when I was in 2nd grade, at a small local bank called American Savings & Loans. My mom would take me in to deposit my little cash, and I would watch my little account balance grow. It was a powerful lesson. 

That bank was acquired by Crocker, which in turn was acquired by Wells, which was my bank as I went off to college. In grad school, something odd happened: a monthly fee appeared on my statements. I called and it was represented as some bullshit “courtesy monitoring service” to which I had agreed. As a beyond-broke grad student, I told them I had never agreed to any such service, and they reversed it. But I was pissed.

Got married within months, and happily consolidated my paltry cash with my wife’s paltry cash in her BofA account: wanted nothing ever again to do with Wells. BofA unsurprisingly turned out to be a predictable piece of shit: we waited very patiently to buy a house and damn near bottom-ticked the cycle Doc top-ticked live on this site from Florida with his freaking open house with cookies (and he did not accept the highest bid, IIRC). Having carried hefty balances, having cycled a ton of salary & bonus earnings for 10 years through our accounts, with sterling credit, and with enough cash to buy our house outright but preferring the flexibility of a conforming loan, BofA refused to originate the loan. It was peak-pain for Cali housing and BofA would not do our business. We found a mortgage broker who would, bought the house with a $417K loan, and immediately closed our BofA accounts in favor a small local bank, which… was of course acquired by a regional bank this past summer, just like my little 2nd grade thrift was.

Fuck the Big Banks. Fuck ‘em to hell. I sort of abandoned this site and financial news engagement after 2009 for a long spell because it was so grotesquely handled. Paulson deftly portrayed the worst-case as the most-likely case to leverage through public backstopping of his buddy’s excesses. Several Big Banks should have been sold off to the smaller, more responsibly run banks for dimes or pennies on the dollar. Carved up and sold out. As creative destruction was intended, Capitalism’s redeeming mechanism. And to instill a generation of terror & fear in finance. Instead within a dozen years, “risk-free” rates were effectively set at zero. Of course they were. And speculative idiocy reigned. Of course it did.   

So, here we are anew. Banks in distress, after years of risk-taking and obscene/unearned bonus-paying, all pursued in the moral-hazard shadow of the GFC. “Too Big to Fail” isn’t a defect: it is the crowning feature that assures private losses are absorbed on the public ledger. Of course reckless uninsured depositors at SVB were backstopped. We know where this all leads. We all know that DC will take care of Wall Street.

Plus ça change….

I can so relate to the Wells Fargo bit. Every bank I had in the early days in California was eventually bought by Wells. What a piece of shit that bank is. Kept closing account there and ending up in another small bank only to repeat. Finally went to BofA which was not a lousy but not great either. I finally called up every bank in town and nailed them down on specifics and moved to Chase. Been happy with them ever since.

Sorry about your dad. I had to deal with the same issues with my mom last year and we still haven't gotten it all sorted out. But I can relate to the level of stress you must be feeling.

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1 hour ago, Jimi said:

My brother was in from Texas, so my sister flew up from SoCal so that the three of us could spend 3 hours at Wells Fargo completing the paperwork to identify us a successor trustees. To get to this stage required 4 previous hours, and a trip to Oakland to obtain a letter from a doctor too busy or indifferent to put it in the mail. The whole effort had almost collapsed anew when Wells legal told my in-branch contact over the phone that because the doctor’s letter did not specify “financial incapacity” (only, “incapacity”…), that it would not suffice. I dropped my only f-bomb, indicated that Wells now was establishing itself as the only party with authority over my father & family’s money, and that my next step was “to escalate.” I generously did not mention the history of dormant accounts.

It took three hours Friday to establish the basis for us to write our signatures four times.

As a child, my parents opened a savings account for me when I was in 2nd grade, at a small local bank called American Savings & Loans. My mom would take me in to deposit my little cash, and I would watch my little account balance grow. It was a powerful lesson. 

That bank was acquired by Crocker, which in turn was acquired by Wells, which was my bank as I went off to college. In grad school, something odd happened: a monthly fee appeared on my statements. I called and it was represented as some bullshit “courtesy monitoring service” to which I had agreed. As a beyond-broke grad student, I told them I had never agreed to any such service, and they reversed it. But I was pissed.

Got married within months, and happily consolidated my paltry cash with my wife’s paltry cash in her BofA account: wanted nothing ever again to do with Wells. BofA unsurprisingly turned out to be a predictable piece of shit: we waited very patiently to buy a house and damn near bottom-ticked the cycle Doc top-ticked live on this site from Florida with his freaking open house with cookies (and he did not accept the highest bid, IIRC). Having carried hefty balances, having cycled a ton of salary & bonus earnings for 10 years through our accounts, with sterling credit, and with enough cash to buy our house outright but preferring the flexibility of a conforming loan, BofA refused to originate the loan. It was peak-pain for Cali housing and BofA would not do our business. We found a mortgage broker who would, bought the house with a $417K loan, and immediately closed our BofA accounts in favor a small local bank, which… was of course acquired by a regional bank this past summer, just like my little 2nd grade thrift was.

Fuck the Big Banks. Fuck ‘em to hell. I sort of abandoned this site and financial news engagement after 2009 for a long spell because it was so grotesquely handled. Paulson deftly portrayed the worst-case as the most-likely case to leverage through public backstopping of his buddy’s excesses. Several Big Banks should have been sold off to the smaller, more responsibly run banks for dimes or pennies on the dollar. Carved up and sold out. As creative destruction was intended, Capitalism’s redeeming mechanism. And to instill a generation of terror & fear in finance. Instead within a dozen years, “risk-free” rates were effectively set at zero. Of course they were. And speculative idiocy reigned. Of course it did.   

So, here we are anew. Banks in distress, after years of risk-taking and obscene/unearned bonus-paying, all pursued in the moral-hazard shadow of the GFC. “Too Big to Fail” isn’t a defect: it is the crowning feature that assures private losses are absorbed on the public ledger. Of course reckless uninsured depositors at SVB were backstopped. We know where this all leads. We all know that DC will take care of Wall Street.

Plus ça change….

First they don‘t let Schumpeter‘s „creative destruction“ run its course and let it happen and then they wonder why the support for capitalism vanishes.

“Occupy Wallstreet“ was a direct and logic outcome of that.

God beware they really would guarantee for all deposits without any limit. That would be the end of capitalism. Ended by capitalists themselves. Quite ironic.

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Had to do on a professional level with many international banks and brokers almost on a daily basis. My asshole factor list:

1. Jeffries

2. Wells Fartgo

Jeffries is just an effing bucket shop stuffed with assholes they hired at the fish market.

Wells was so unprofessional. Like if they wouldn‘t know what they are doing. Unfriendly as hell too.

Very kind, very pro, smart: Basically all asian banks, most European ones. Best was UBS.

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The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are today announcing a coordinated action to enhance the provision of liquidity via the standing U.S. dollar liquidity swap line arrangements.  To improve the swap lines' effectiveness in providing U.S. dollar funding, the central banks currently offering U.S. dollar operations have agreed to increase the frequency of 7-day maturity operations from weekly to daily. These daily operations will commence on Monday, March 20, 2023, and will continue at least through the end of April.  The network of swap lines among these central banks is a set of available standing facilities and serve as an important liquidity backstop to ease strains in global funding markets, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses.The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are today announcing a coordinated action to enhance the provision of liquidity via the standing U.S. dollar liquidity swap line arrangements.  To improve the swap lines' effectiveness in providing U.S. dollar funding, the central banks currently offering U.S. dollar operations have agreed to increase the frequency of 7-day maturity operations from weekly to daily. These daily operations will commence on Monday, March 20, 2023, and will continue at least through the end of April.  The network of swap lines among these central banks is a set of available standing facilities and serve as an important liquidity backstop to ease strains in global funding markets, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230319a.htm

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