If you didn't catch the full-page Wells Fargo ad in Sunday's
New York Times, the paper takes a closer look at it today.
“O.K., time out. Something doesn’t feel right,” writes John Stumpf, the chief executive of Wells Fargo, in a full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times and Washington Post. In a long letter, he blames misleading news articles that create the impression that “every employee recognition event is a junket, a boondoggle, a waste, or that it’s for highly paid executives. Nonsense!”
Its annual “recognition events,” Mr. Stumpf added, were paid for by profits, not the government.
Stumpf goes on in the ad, though, to say the company has canceled its "recognition events" for the rest of the year due to just this perception.
Wells Fargo was just in time for the new rules the White House is
pushing that place greater restrictions on not only CEO pay from those companies seeking government and TARP help, but also on entertainment, holiday parties, and oh yes,
corporate jets. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to
announce additional plans for the bank bailout tomorrow. The TARP news was delayed a day as the Obama administration
continued to focus on the stimulus package.