Wall of Shame

BUSINESS / CORPORATE


When will the Koch brothers have enough?
When they have twice as much as Warren Buffet?

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! Note !
More businesses and business-leaders may be added,
if I ever take time from other projects to update this page.

Introduction :

This page gives a list of 'objects' deserving of scorn and derision --- and, in many cases, deserving of criminal prosecution. The 'objects' may be businesses or the leaders of those businesses.

The 'objects' are listed on this page in alphabetical order --- by the business name (a specific name or a generic name) or by a person's last name.

How to navigate this page

You can use an option like 'Find in This Page ...' of your web browser to search for key words in this web page, such as 'enron' or 'worldcom' or 'shell' or 'goldman' or 'sachs' or 'blankfein'.

Or you can simply scroll down this page to find 'objects' of interest.

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Some sample 'WEB SEARCHES' on pertinent keywords are provided. These searches can be used to find details on these 'objects' --- at 'external' web sites.

Blankfein, Lloyd (CEO of Goldman Sachs, circa 2006 to 2016-plus)

How this man, Lloyd Blankfein, can have the audacity to go before Congress --- and before the public on the Charlie Rose show --- and pretend like he knows nothing about his people knowingly selling investments (bundles of bad mortgages, 'derivatives') that they (those same employees) would turn around and 'short' --- is beyond me.

Goldman Sachs was a major 'player' in the worldwide economic meltdown of 2007-2008.

What is really beyond me is why this man is not in prison!

    Answer:
    Probably because the White House (executive branch) is staffed with ex-Goldman-Sachs executives --- which, by the way, brings up more candidates for this 'wall of shame' list.

A 'common' criminal who steals a loaf of bread is put in prison. A man who facilitates and condones the selling of millions and billions of dollars worth of bad investment-paper (that he knows is bad) is allowed to walk free and continue collecting bonuses and out-sized stock awards and 'performance-reward' grants (even when performance is average at best).

I saw an editorial comment where someone pointed out that if our enforcement-and-judicial system would put one or two medical doctors in prison for excessive prescriptions of opioid drugs, there would be a sudden huge reduction in the opioid addiction problem.

The same applies here. If one or two Wall Street executives were sent to prison for billion-dollar frauds (like KNOWINGLY selling bad 'paper' to clients), there would be a sudden huge reduction in investment fraud.

BP P.L.C.   (formerly British Petroleum company)

    (perpetrator of Alaska pipeline leaks,
    Texas oil refinery explosions, and
    Gulf of Mexico oil platform disasters)

No doubt it is a tough job managing world-wide petro-chemical facilities --- but pipeline leaks AND oil refinery explosions AND a horrible oil platform blowout add up to just too much negligence and mis-management.

Nuff said (for now). Try the following searches for details.

Coal Companies, U.S. (plowing mountain-tops into streams)

These companies and their executives deserve to rot in a hot underground coal mine.

When you hear the words 'purple mountain majesties', remember that these guys are obliterating many of those majesties.

If you hear these guys talking about how they 'love this country', be aware that no-one who loves this country would be doing what they are doing to it.

They are supposed to 'remediate' all the damage they are doing to Mother Nature. But common sense tells you that when the U.S. coal companies, in the declining coal industry, go bankrupt, they will not be able to 'remediate' --- and it will be up to U.S. taxpayers to pay for the remediation.

And when those coal companies eventually go bankrupt, the pensions that are due to the coal miners who risked their lives for so many years will have no backing ... UNLESS the U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab for the coal miner pensions.

Note that Congress should have passed laws requiring coal companies to put away a certain amount each year to cover eventual remediation costs (and adequately cover pension costs). But you can be sure that Republicans in Congress felt that such a 'remediation day fund' would be too onerous to bear. Not good for business. Not good for 'free enterprise'.

    (Those Republican Congress people knowingly let the burden fall, eventually, on the U.S. taxpayer --- while those same Republicans constantly say that they are trying to keep taxes low. They keep taxes low by putting off to tomorrow what should be planned for --- and budgeted for --- today. Case in point: the Afghanistan and Iraq wars under Bush, after huge tax cuts for the rich were passed. Our children, as well as ourselves, will be paying for those interminable wars --- when the national deficits hit the fan.)

Cox, Christopher
(SEC chairman, under George Bush, circa 2007-2008, the grand melt-down)

Christopher Cox's hands-off attitude during the shenanigans going on on Wall Street in the 2005-2008 era (the GMOAT = Greatest Meltdown of All Time) --- including hands-off of Bernie Madoff --- qualifies this poor excuse for a man for high-lighting on this page.

Koch brothers (private company executives)

The Koch brothers (Charles and David) are trying to do all they can to change one-man-one-vote to one-dollar-one-vote --- as well as protect the oil industry from the coming competition of renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal) which is becoming cost-competitive in the 2015 to 2025 time frame.

In other words, the Koch brothers are trying to subvert major portions of the U.S. Constitution (relative to the right to vote) --- and they are trying to extend subsidies (like the depletion allowance) to the oil-gas industry while denying subsidies to the renewable energy industry.

That's right --- oil-gas companies get a tax break for depleting the natural resources of the United States.

The oil-gas companies like to think of the oil and gas as theirs. They do not like to think that they are simply tapping into resources that are owned 'by the people', that is, by the federal government which is supposed to manage those resources on behalf of the country's citizens.

It is not enough for them to think of themselves as being allowed to sell the resources back to the owners, after refining and providing storage and distribution facilities. They want to be considered the owners, and therefore entitled to 'depletion allowances', because they are depleting THEIR resources --- not the resources of the country's citizens.

A nice thing about wind and solar is 'there is no depletion' --- not for about a billion years anyway.

Madoff, Bernie (investments mis-manager)

I think you know why he qualifies for this page. But in case you do not, try the following web searches.

Shell Oil Company (Royal Dutch Shell P.L.C.)
(drilling the Arctic ; challenging Mother Nature ; Mother Nature will win)

In the 2010 to 2015 time frame, Shell had plans to drill off the Alaskan North shore --- while Shell knows full well that they will not be able to swiftly stop an oil well blow-out in super-freezing conditions --- and they know full well that Shell will have to depend on the U.S. taxpayer to pay for the cleanup.

Shell has had mulitple mishaps in Alaska --- including two oil platforms that were scuttled by Mother Nature --- the grounding of the Kulluk drill barge in Dec 2012, preceded by the near-grounding of drilling ship Noble Discoverer in mid 2012.

Shell was going to try again --- but, luckily for the Arctic sea life and Alaskan life that depends on that sea, the 'fracking' industry drove down the price of oil and gas --- thus making it unprofitable to sink huge amounts of money into deploying and operating oil platforms in a frozen wilderness sea.

It's not a question of 'if' a bad accident is going to happen if/when they drill there. Given the extreme conditions there, it is simply a matter of 'when'.

'Street Corner' Mortgage Bundlers   (on 'Main Street', not 'Wall Street')

To see some of these guys (Main Street mortgage harvesters, selling mortgages to Wall Street), see the CNBC documentary program 'House of Cards' (2009), reported by David Faber.

Guys with no previous financial training, like former physical trainers, opened 'street corner' mortgage businesses, and they were eagerly selling crappy mortgages to Wall Street financial institutions --- who in turn were eagerly bundling the crap up into financial instruments such as 'derivatives' to sell to anyone they could 'con' into buying the mortgage-backed securities --- such as a Swedish municipality whose mayor was interviewed in the documentary.

Faber introduces viewers to mortgage lenders like Daniel Sadek (founder of 'Quick Loan Funding') who drastically reduced borrowers' credit requirements and raked in personal profits of $5 million a month.

Why aren't these 'Main Street' guys in jail?

They were forging people's income information on mortgage applications.

Just because these 'mortgage-harvesters' got the borrower's signature on the incomplete applications before the 'harvesters' filled in the phony income figures should not give them a "get out of jail free pass" on forgery charges.

Falsifying income figures should amount to some kind of conspiracy violation. There should be multiple ways of putting these guys in jail --- forgery, consipiracy, income tax evasion, etc.

The 'Main Street' guys were accomplices to the 'Wall Street' guys. In fact, in a sense, they were the leaders --- the enablers.

Stumpf, John   (former Wells Fargo CEO)

I could not believe it when it was revealed that around 2016, Wells Fargo had been opening new (extra) accounts for customers, without their approval. If that had happened to me, I would be so angry that I would not be able to see straight.

And then it was revealed that this had been going on for more than a year. And then it was revealed that over 5,000 Wells Fargo employees had been fired for opening unapproved accounts.

REALLY! Five thousand employees fired, and no Wells Fargo executive found it necessary to step in and do something about this travesty. THEY SHOULD HAVE HAD A HINT WHEN THE FIRST 100 (or less) WERE FIRED.

In fact, something stinks in that story. I would be willing to bet that many of those 5,000 were actually people who quit because they could not stomach what was going on.

I think the media (such as CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc.) were really gullible when they did not track down some of the 5,000 and find out their stories.

    Disgustingly, the TV media do their usual thing of interviewing their paid 'contributors', to get their 'opinions' of the situation --- INSTEAD OF seeking out people who were actually involved in the mess and interviewing them.

    I guess these TV media outlets feel safer interviewing their 'contributors'. They know what to expect from someone they interview day after day --- even though they are just getting 'opinions' --- not facts.

It is just too hard to believe that Wells Fargo would fire 5,000 employees --- and yet not curb their employee-motivation practices that were leading employees to open unapproved accounts.

I saw Stumpf interviewed on the Jim Cramer show just a month or so before Stumpf was finally forced to resign. He had obviously been supplied by his lawyers with a 'catch phrase' to use in his future dealings with Congress and whoever. The catch phrase went something like "To the extent that's a consideration, it is a board process."

Stumpf used that phrase whenever Cramer asked about clawbacks or whether there was oversight by various executives.

In other words, Stumpf was trying to pass the whole instance of thousands and thousands of unapproved accounts being opened up, over a period of about four years, as something relatively minor --- and was bragging that Wells Fargo was (finally) doing something about it.

This poor excuse for a human being (Stumpf) was acting like the opening of two million checking and credit-card bank accounts without the consent of its customers was a minor 'blind-spot' on his part.

This man is a sub-human being. He should be tarred and feathered --- and deported to a third-world country --- to try his banking account scams there --- not in the United States, ever again. He does not deserve to be a citizen of the U.S.A. He has proved he cannot be trusted to be a decent citizen. In fact, he has gone far beyond that. He has proved that he is sub-human.

Some Web Searches to Try :

Here are some links to Google searches that can provide 'new' instances --- and more information on 'known-to-you' instances --- of shameful activities by businesses and their leaders.

  • shell oil alaska spill (over 4 million hits, 2012 Mar)
    (Add keywords to zero in on particulars --- for example, add 'cleanup' or 'blowout' or 'kickback'.)

  • bp disasters (over 6 million hits, 2012 Mar)
    (Add keywords to zero in on particular cases --- for example, add 'alaska pipline' or 'texas chemical'.)

  • west virginia mountain top removal (over 1 million hits, 2012 Mar)

  • mortgage scandals house of cards (over 100 million hits, 2012 Mar)
    (Add keywords to zero in on particular cases --- for example, add "street corner", with the quotes.)

  • ponzi schemes (over 1 million hits, 2012 Mar)
    (Add keywords to zero in on particular cases --- for example, add 'madoff'.)

  • SEC scandals (over 2 million hits, 2012 Mar) --- where SEC = Securities and Exchange Commission
    (Add keywords to zero in on particulars --- for example, add 'chris cox'.)

  • goldman sachs scandals (over 800,000 hits, 2012 Mar)
    (Add keywords to zero in on particulars --- for example, add 'lloyd blankfein'.)

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Page was first posted 2012 Mar 31.

Page was changed 2017 Jun 17. (Added many 'WEB SEARCH' links. Also added a John Stumpf section.)

Page was changed 2018 Oct 17. (Added css and javascript to try to handle text-size for smartphones, esp. in portrait orientation.)