Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Editorial: What was Wells Fargo thinking?
By Editorial Board
Rocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado State U.
February 04, 2009

We have to hand it to you Wells Fargo, you almost slipped one past us.

The lavish hotels, the corporate jets and the personal Jimmy Buffet concerts in the Bahamas will have to wait for better days, for now.

According the Associated Press early Tuesday, the bank, which late last year received $25 billion in bailout cash from the government, was set to treat employees to a series of high-end, and high priced, corporate junkets in Las Vegas this month.

In previous years the company had given all-expenses-paid helicopter rides, wine tastings and horseback rides to employees.

But while other banks that received bailout money from taxpayers cancelled their employee recognition outings, Wells Fargo had the gall to book 12 nights in expensive Las Vegas hotels -- until late Tuesday night that is.

The AP reported that amid "a torrent of criticism that it was misusing $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money," Wells Fargo cancelled their Sin-City junkets.

It is a misguided, yet ultimately correct, decision, but it is hard to ignore the institution's unethical choice to spend hard-earned taxpayer money in that fashion.

Changing your mind after being backed into a corner by pissed off citizens is hardly admirable.

So Wells Fargo shame on you -- we all know that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

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