On Thursday, September 8th, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a Consent Order describing abuses committed by Wells Fargo employees dating back to January of 2011, when, over the course of almost six years, some 565,443 bogus credit card accounts and 1,534,280 bogus deposit accounts were opened by approximately 5,300 [now former] Wells Fargo employees on behalf of unsuspecting Wells Fargo customers.

Wells Fargo bank has agreed to pay fines totaling $185M. …oh, and Wells Fargo must also refund the approximately $2.4M in fees roughly one hundred thousand of these bogus accounts generated for the bank.

Dunno, but that strikes me as a pretty crappy return on investment, if you ask me…

Chief Executive Officer, John Stumpf, has been eviscerated by various and sundry members of Congress twice – first on September 20th, and again yesterday, on September 29th. Calls for Stumpf’s resignation, a so-called “claw back” of his earnings and even hints at criminal investigations have spewed forth from the frothing pie holes of our duly-elected officials as they gesticulated wildly for the cameras during the hearings…

Yup, pure political theater.

On Tuesday, September 27th, Wells Fargo Bank, NA, announced current CEO, John Stumpf, will forfeit $41M in unvested equity awards and former Wells Fargo executive, Carrie Tolstedt, will forfeit $19M in unvested equity awards.

To be clear, I’m not attempting in any way, shape or form to defend the bank’s behavior. Quite the contrary, I applaud the CFPB’s pursuit of the culprits and leveling of fines against the bank. But let’s be clear, $185M, give or take, isn’t going to hurt Wells Fargo at all. The bad publicity will sting for a while and a few executives will – necessarily – have to fall on their swords, so-to-speak, but life will go on, both for the bank, and for the rest of the nation. Sad, but true. If we want to talk pain, real pain, then the fine should’ve been in the billon dollar range – yeah, give ’til it hurts!

Stumpf, Tolstedt and anybody else remotely involved in this deserve a >:\ >:\ >:\ rating for this colossal financial cluster f*ck.