Friday, July 29, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Chase Has Customer Thrown in Jail After He Tries to Cash Chase Check
In more banks behaving badly news, Chase had Ikenna Njoku thrown in jail after he tried to cash a check that they had issued to him. The bank somehow failed to recognize that their own check was legitimate, and because the investigating officer happened to be on his day off when they finally discovered their error, Mr. Njoku was forced to spend the weekend in jail. The system at work. As can be expected, Mr. Njoku now banks with Wells Fargo.
Charlie Munger Unleashed
Charlie Munger on the Wall Street Bubble:
It all started with an asinine bubble. The cause was a combination of megalomania, stupidity, insanity, and I would say evil on the part of bankers and mortgage brokers.
And it was widespread. Alan Greenspan was a smart guy, but he totally overdosed on Ayn Rand when he was young. You can't give bankers the freedom to create gambling games. That's what it was. Wall Street was a gambling house, and the house's odds were better than a Vegas casino. And real casino operators have to build parking lots, fly in entertainers, pay for bars and restaurants. It's expensive. Wall Street was like a casino with no overhead. It was hog heaven for them. But it created vast damage with terrible consequences to civilization.
None of us should fall for the idea that this was constructive capitalism. In the 1920s they called it bucket shops -- just the name tells you it's bad -- and they eventually made it illegal, and rightly so. They should do the same this time.
You can read more of Charlie's excellent musings over at The Motley Fool (don't forget to hit the second part as well), and you can read his parody of the financial crisis over at Slate.
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