WELLS FARGO & VEGAS

One of our followers commented on the Citi story that Wells Fargo's planned trips to Vegas was insulting. Whether it is Well's Vegas trip, Citi's private plane use, Bank of America's bonuses or Thain and his office, it is a sense of business as usual and a sense of entitlement.

It reminds me of a story. A number of years ago a venture capital guy with a pretty large office and numerous significant holdings had to hire me as an advisor because he owed $500 million more than he could pay back to his lenders.

This gentleman had leased two private airplanes. I told him day one that the planes had to go. He was not a fan of this advice. Finally I had to go to Boston for a meeting. He lived outside of Boston and after the meeting he asked me to meet him at Signature Aviation building at Logan. We boarded his plane and took the 25 minute trip to Teteboro Airport in North Jersey.

As we landed, he said, "So, what do you think of flying private?" I replied, "It is the only way to travel and you can't do it anymore." The next day I called the leasing company and asked them to take back their planes.

Cheers, Mike