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Bailed-Out Wells Fargo Plans Las Vegas Junket
WASHINGTON - Wells Fargo & Co., which received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, is planning a series of corporate junkets to Las Vegas casinos this month.
The Wynn Las Vegas, right, and its sister hotel, Encore Las Vegas, are seen in Las Vegas, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009. Wells Fargo & Co., which received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, is planning a series of corporate outings to Las Vegas casinos this month.(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Wells Fargo, once among the nation's top writers of subprime mortgages, has booked 12 nights at the Wynn Las Vegas and its sister hotel, the Encore Las Vegas beginning Friday, said Wynn spokeswoman Michelle Loosbrock. The hotels will host the annual conference for company's top mortgage officers.
The conference is a Wells Fargo tradition. Previous years have included all-expense-paid helicopter rides, wine tasting, horseback riding in Puerto Rico and a private Jimmy Buffett concert in the Bahamas for more than 1,000 employees and guests.
"I was amazed with just how lavish it was," said Debra Rickard, a former Wells Fargo mortgage employee from Colorado who attended the events regularly until she left the company in 2004. "We stayed in top hotels, the entertainment was just unbelievable, and there were awards - you got plaques or trophies."
While the nation's recession has led other banks, such as Bank of America, to cancel employee recognition outings, Wells Fargo has not.
"Recognition events are still part of our culture," spokeswoman Melissa Murray said. "It's really important that our team members are still valued and recognized."
Corporate retreats have attracted criticism since the bank bailout last fall. Congress scolded insurance giant American International Group Inc. for spending $440,000 on spa treatments for executives just days after the company took $85 billion from taxpayers.
AIG has since canceled all such outings.
Beginning Feb. 25, Wells Fargo's insurance division is hosting a 40-person team meeting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Murray did not immediately have details about the size or cost of the events or what was planned.
In previous years, top loan officers were treated to performances by Cher, Jay Leno and Huey Lewis. One year, the company provided fortune tellers and offered camel rides, Rickard said. Every night when employees returned to their rooms, there was a new gift on their pillows, she said.
Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Kovacevich has traditionally greeted every employee personally when they arrived.
Rooms at the Wynn and the Encore are consistently among the most expensive in Las Vegas. The $2.3 billion Encore opened in December as sister hotel to the Wynn. Its decor includes a 27-foot Asian dragon made from 90,000 Swarovski crystals and artwork by Colombian artist Fernando Botero. One of the restaurants features Frank Sinatra's 1953 Oscar.
Both properties have high-end retail stores, including Manolo Blahnik at Wynn and Chanel at Encore.
25 Comments so far
Show AllFrom the article: "Recognition events are still part of our culture," spokeswoman Melissa Murray said. "It's really important that our team members are still valued and recognized."
Yeah right I can hear them say, "Thanks to the stupid gullible tax payers, I lavish praise, awards and perks on my valued team members who helped ran the world's economy into the ground, shattering lives, destroying dreams, and driving people to their graves" These hooligans gotta be recognized hardeeharhar.
These thugs have no shame. Too big to fail, too big to jail. Oinkers!
"Everybody knows the fight was fixed,
That the poor stay poor and rich get rich,
That's how it goes,
Everybody knows."
Leonard Cohen
I am shocked, shocked...
I am not.
Of course they have no shame. They know how stupid the masses are. Nobody is outraged, nobody is protesting, most people care more about the superbowl, so why these bankers should feel any remorse?
Hi ladybug. I was asked if I was going to watch the superbowl. I said "I was not interested." Why should I watch these banksters throw it in my face? They used some of that bailout money for the "festivities", those ghouls.
What is it going to take to get people out of their lethargy and into the streets protesting this kind of corporate pillaging? Are we all brain dead or high on some illegal substance. What the hell is going on with us!!!
Hi Taras. The only substance that the people seem to be on is the opiate of entertainment.
Taras, you are absolutely right. There is no reason we should stand still for this. Wells Fargo is laying off employees in the US, hiring employees in India, and celebrating big in Vegas.
At last now we have a president who will admit when he is wrong (rather than gloss over his mistakes). He also has the nads to tell the corp giants what most Americans think - that we aren't paying their huge salaries and bonuses. If we're going to get screwed, we're at least entitled to dinner and a movie first.
Additional Prizes
Hot air baloon rides north to tar sands in Canada, mountain top coal mining regions, aging nuclear power plants and and the San Diego freeway- on a windless day.
My bailout Dollars went to Las Vegas and I didn't even get a lousy T-shirt!
HA HA! : )
And... it is a Tax write-off for the Corp !
Beyond the criminal malfeasence on the part of Wells Fargo management, this is actually quite funny. The idea of top performing bankers being awarded the chance to hang out in Vegas is a little like a pimp rewarding each of his top revenue earners with a $1,000 gift certificate for the local sex toy emporium.
Neocon dinosaurs die slow but let us be thankful that they do die.
Poet
It's been canceled.
There is a famous Russian proverb which avers that the rot of a fish begins at its head. If our current economy/finances are a rotting fish it is a multi-headed fish. Stop believing that Wall Street is its only head. The numerous rotting heads of our economical/financial fish are: Wall Street, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Cong of established financiers, the Cong of established economists, the Cong of Lobbyists, the Cong of Government Lawyers, almost the entire Federal Government, the Military establishment, and probably all State Governments.
The rot of the economy began many years ago when the growth of the median income of the wage-earning class began to lag increasingly and substantially behind inflation. I am a firm believer in the natural and social principles of "dialectic". What happened sometime during 2008 is that the "tipping point" of that economic divergence was reached and the system crashed. Sure, the bursting of the housing bubble accelerated the rot but it was never the cause in the first place. It is a useful camouflage-diversion by economists from the true problem of our economy which is the ever eroding purchasing power of the wage-earning class.
As long as there is no re-emergence in our country of a strong and independent labor movement the rot will continue while the Government attempts to cover the stench with its deceiving Eau de Colognes of "bailout" and "stimulus package". The existing Labor Unions should disappear and be replaced by labor organizations that stop playing the mindless "pay-for-play-games" with Senators, Representatives, and wannabe Presidential Candidates that have only produced a disaster of epic proportions for working people.
Mr. Obama's economic/financial team portends a continuation and worsening of the current disaster. They will ransack Social Security the most successful Federal program ever because they are too cowardly to reduce the dangerous debt increase by cutting the military budget and recovering the "tax break" from those earning more than $ 250,000 which Mr. Obama promised he would do during his campaign. Obviously campaigning and governing are different arts.
It is also becoming crystal clear that Hillary Clinton was correct when she averred that Mr. Obama was too inexperienced to become our President this time around. President Obama is floundering and talking nothing but hot air daily as he did during his Presidential campaigns. It is frightening to observe how the seasoned Republican fish-heads are tackling him.
"One year, the company provided fortune tellers." These fortune tellers told the banksters of the failing times ahead, but the banksters replied "So what? The taxpayers will bail us out."
Hard times are coming to Vegas. Big time. That pathetic, energy-consuming town has supported so much growth during the past decade, and now it's all falling apart. And Lake (sic) Mead is drying up. The SW in general (so heavily dependent on the Colorado River for its water) will be the first region of the country to experience a living hell on earth. It's coming soon ...and it will be televised.
You people are idiots if you have a problem with this. This is how business is done. There is an industry conference and that's where deals are done, networking, etc. I am, if this stops, you will all get eventually fired. Wells Fargo was not bailed out - they are bailing out Wachovia.
It is probably hard to find another country where peopel are so brainwashed.
Oh, and the room at Wynn is $139. Like your town's 5 stars Motel 8.
That's beside the point. BTW for your edification, it's called the Motel 6. We'll leave the light on for you.
Thank you, Tom Bodet. : )
lol!
Dude--you seem to have overlooked one very important detail--the money to acquire Wachovia was gotten from TARP and not from the thrifty management of their own funds on the part of Wells Fargo.
As long as there is slop in the trough and slimey mud all around the hogs will wallow.
Poet
If that's how business is done, they should do it on their own nickel and not the US taxpayer's. Call me crazy, call me an idiot if you will; but I'm not big on welfare for banksters, so sue me.
True, but NOT a 12-day junket! Business/networking meetings are best accomplished in 3 days max. Longer than that, people get tired and bored.
But a 12-day junket sounds like a holiday!
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.