Wells Fargo is What?

Wells Fargo is now calling itself the world’s “largest community bank” in commercials airing during the Olympics. So does that mean that Wells Fargo is suddenly NOT “too-big-to-fail”? That it has joined the ranks of the “too-small-to-save”? Don’t make me laugh. Wall Street mega firms better be careful what they call themselves lest they be confused with actual community banks that regulators allow to fail on a weekly basis and whose investors are totally wiped out.

Until someone tells me that the U.S. government will let Wells Fargo fail and all its shareholders totally wiped out, then Wells Fargo does not deserve the moniker “community bank.” It is an insult to REAL community banks.

You can’t call yourself a community bank unless you actually are subject to free-market forces and are allowed to succeed or fail based on your own merit. Like so many Wall Street mega firms, Wells Fargo wants it both ways—100 percent government protection AND the perception that it is a community bank. Never confuse Main Street with Wall Street.