The liberal socialists have found a new hero in one Mr. Tyrel Oates. Mr. Oates is a cashier/clerk in a Wells Fargo Bank branch up in Oregon. Well, he had a little time on his hands and decided that he would email the Chairman/CEO of Wells Fargo, Mr. John Stumpf, and ask for a $10,000 dollar a year pay raise for himself and all other Wells Fargo employees. But Tyrel, being Tyrel decided to send a copy of his email to 200,000 other Wells Fargo employees. Safety in numbers, huh?
Now Tyrel, being the banking type, pulled out his calculator and ran the numbers on the cost to Wells Fargo of handing out $10,000 dollar pay raises to hundreds of thousands of employees. He forwarded that $3.7 billion dollar figure to the CEO and said that, with all of the bank's income, it could well afford to hand out another $3.7 billion dollars to employees.
And, no, Tyrel didn't want to distinguish which employees might merit a raise, and which ones didn't..he was all for "sharing equally", regardless of job performance.
Tyrel further reinforced his argument by citing CEO Stumpf's $19 million dollar annual salary and that all employees should get that $10 grand a year more because Stumpf has so much more than they have. (I'm sure that part went over big with the CEO, especially since Tyrel cc'd 200,000 employees.
Well, all of this is just great, isn't it boys and girls? Poor little Tyrel against big bad millionaire CEO Stumpf.
Well, lets consider Tyrel's demands, and from what base they are coming from.
First of all, I'm a little suspicious of Tyrel's banking acumen. First of all, Tyrel cited Wells Fargo's gross income as justification for giving out nearly $4 billion in employee raises. Guess he's never read a company report...those numbers that fall below "gross income"...the $21 billion in company expenses that get shaved off the gross immediately. Secondly, Tyrel seems to assume that CEO Stumpf can just decide to grant $4 billion in employee largesse himself. Earth to Tyrel: Wells Fargo is a public company, owned by several million shareholders, fully expecting their $1.70 percent dividend yield so they can pay their mortgage and buy groceries....any income from this publicly traded company is decided by shareholders through the authority of their proxies. Finally, Tyrel, John Stumpf is an employee, just like you. And, no, he doesn't make $19 million a year; his salary is $1 million a year, and if he's brilliant enough to guide Wells Fargo through profitability he might get that extra $18 million in bonuses.
And, unlike you, Tyrel, the CEO's position is highly tentative, lasting a very few years, and he can be fired in a heartbeat if the wheat crop is bad, or if mortgages sour, or if America keeps going socialist, as is your bent. Tyrel, you might be interested to know CEO Stumpf came from humble beginnings; raised on a dairy farm, got no scholarships to Harvard, and started at Wells Fargo as a young man. He started out trying to collect deadbeat debt. He didn't take the time to write letters begging for a pay raise. Instead he went out and hustled collections on bad car loans, and repossessed cars on freezing nights in Minnesota. Stumpf worked his way up in the banking world and, some forty years later, achieved sufficient success to earn his the CEO job.
Tyrel, you're much smarter than your CEO. You surrounded yourself with the protection of 200,000 employees and whined for a pay raise. Now that your email to the CEO has gone viral you are surely a hero of the Pelosi set and will not get fired for your chutzpah..in fact you're the hero of the day to every burger flipper in America and every liberal socialist bent on taking down capitalism. But, you know, Tyrel, I think you should have addressed that email to Nancy Pelosi's husband, and Diane Feinstein's husband and Maxine Waters' husband. Know what they all do? They are all billionaire banking executives...and I would love to hear what they would say to your request for a $10,000 dollar pay raise from THEIR banking establishments.
Post Script: My regular readers know that I'm not a huge fan of banks. However, I'm even less of a fan of whining socialists who demand "re-distribution" of wealth without having earned it.
