The San Francisco-based bank announced that it will pay the substantial financial penalty to both the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Roughly $500 million of the fine will be allocated to the SEC. The regulator will use the funds from the settlement to offer some restitution to the the defrauded customers. 

The problems began when Wells Fargo executives pressured rank-and-file bank personnel to aggressively cross-sell products to enhance sales and revenue to meet certain quotas. Deception reared its ugly head when Wells Fargo employees then created millions of savings and checking accounts for customers without their knowledge or approval. 

For comparison's sake, major WF shareholder "Uncle Warren" Buffett made sure to get a dig into cryptocurrencies today -- "he doesn't hold them and never will"; but WF shares are, presumably, sterling!

You could use that money to start a business.  You could use it to consolidate debt or payoff student loans.  You could use it to buy a second home or maybe a motorhome.  You could use it to pay capital gains taxes... or settle a lawsuit. You could use it for absolutely anything.

Who wouldn't want an Uncle Hecm?  The answer is no one.

See also HELOCs Are Bad for Older Homeowners. Better Options Exist.

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Ultimately, market forces and the tastes of buyers may be to blame. The dip in luxury sales in NYC has been well-documented (despite the occasional $59 million penthouse sale in the neighborhood), and one broker with Douglas Elliman speculated that the apartments themselves don't quite reflect what buyers want these days--namely, smaller, less expensive apartments.

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He ... made another admission about why Republicans refuse to do anything about climate change, which he implicitly acknowledged as a real thing. "We take the position in my party that asking people to change their lifestyle dramatically, including by paying more taxes, is simply not something we are interested in doing." ... They never have a problem with asking poor people, senior citizens, communities of color or anyone who doesn't vote Republican to change their lifestyle dramatically by not having enough to eat, or a roof, or health care...

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The union at the Brooklyn-based crowd-funding platform arrives during a period of unprecedented labor organizing among engineers and other white collar tech workers at Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other prominent tech companies--around issues like sexual harassment, ICE contracts, and carbon emissions. Between 2017 and 2019, the number of protest actions led by tech workers nearly tripled. In 2019 alone, tech workers led more than 100 actions, according to the online database "Collective Actions in Tech."

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The decision to unionize at Kickstarter follows a series of victories for union campaigns led by blue collar tech workers. Last year, 80 Google contractors in Pittsburgh, 2,300 cafeteria workers at Google in Silicon Valley, and roughly 40 Spin e-scooter workers in San Francisco voted to form the first unions in the tech industry. In early February, 15 employees at the delivery app Instacart in Chicago successfully unionized, following a fierce anti-union campaign run by management.

By some accounts, the current wave of white collar tech organizing began in early 2018 when the San Francisco tech company Lanetix fired its entire 14-software engineer staff after they filed to unionize with Communications Workers of America (CWA). Later, the company was forced to cough up $775,000 to settle unfair labor practice charges.

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"Wealthy people are already looking to move into the neighborhood," Mr. Mast said of how he would explain his findings to a heated public meeting over such a proposal. "So we can build this building that will give them the sort of unit that they want to live in. Or if we don't, they'll take a unit nearby and renovate it."

That logic may be little comfort to longtime residents, particularly those concerned about neighborhood changes that go beyond rent prices. But it addresses at least one argument against new housing.

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One caution comes from research by Anthony Damiano and Chris Frenier, doctoral candidates at the University of Minnesota who looked at new large-scale buildings built across Minneapolis. Like Mr. Mast and Ms. Li, they find that new supply helped ease rent pressure for higher-end units nearby. But at the bottom third of the market, they concluded that new buildings had the opposite effect, accelerating rents.

It's possible in some contexts that new market-rate apartments could cause one set of nearby landlords to curb their rents even as it causes another set to reassess how cheap their rents have been. It's even possible that lower-income renters may feel a bite from new construction at first, even if they may benefit from it over the long run

At the time, the company also slashed its dividend by 36% and disclosed an investigation into its accounting practices by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In the year since, Kraft Heinz has announced further writedowns, scrapped its full-year adjusted earnings outlook, and is still under SEC investigation.

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Brazilian private equity firm 3G and billionaire Warren Buffett engineered the merger of H.J. Heinz and Kraft Foods in 2015, and since that deal the value of Kraft Heinz's stock has sunk about 60%. Under executives installed by 3G, the company made aggressive cuts using a tool called zero-based budgeting (ZBB) that incentivizes managers to meet strict cost targets - critics say this ate in to investment in brands.

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Elliott, founded by billionaire Paul Singer, did not disclose the size of its stake in SoftBank nor specific steps it wants the company to take.

However, The Wall Street Journal reported that the investment amounts to more than $2.5 billion, or around 3% of SoftBank's entire market value. The paper said Elliott is pushing for up to $20 billion in share buybacks and improvements in SoftBank's corporate governance.

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In some ways, the tables have turned on SoftBank, which has long wielded vast power through its mega tech fund. Now, SoftBank is the one under pressure by a well-heeled investor.

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To unpack the Canadian group's accounts is to discover not so much a company as a giant, triangular jigsaw board that spreads across the world and covers assets worth $500bn. The pieces are hundreds of corporate entities, all locked together by elaborate contracts, which give 40 people at the top the right to rule huge sections of the puzzle almost as if it were their own. Those insiders wield such power that the companies below them could face risks similar to those of "pyramid control companies", according to a draft investor disclosure that Brookfield filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2013. (The final version warned instead of risks "associated with a separation of economic interest from control".)

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The known links between Qatar and Brookfield all converge on the investment group's listed property fund BPY. About one-tenth of the fund's assets are tied up in skyscrapers in Canary Wharf and Manhattan that are co-owned by Qatar, but the connection goes further. Through a sovereign wealth fund, Doha is one of BPY's biggest investors, holding $1.8bn worth of BPY preferred equity. The securities have a debtlike quality, and Qatar can force BAM to buy them back for $1.8bn over the next six years.In theory, Qatar has significant influence over BPY. It is entitled to choose one person to sit on BPY's board, and to receive confidential information that other investors never see. Brookfield says the kingdom has never exercised either of those rights. (The Qatar Investment Authority declined to comment.) Both sides have previously indicated that, when Brookfield was negotiating a $1.3bn lease on 666 Fifth Avenue, a building that Charles Kushner had discussed with the Qataris the previous year, the kingdom was not involved.No matter who made the decision or knew about it, rescuing the Kushners strikes some real estate investors as ill-advised.

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In the public accounts of BPY, the listed property fund that received Qatari investment, 666 Fifth Avenue has already all but disappeared. Last January, BPY lost control of BSREP III, the private vehicle that owns the building, after reducing its stake to $1bn. New investors piled in, each taking a piece of the Kushner tower, and lifting the private fund's firepower to $15bn.That influx of cash has not made the tower's ownership any more transparent. A handful of US pension funds have acknowledged their participation, but few other investors have been identified publicly. Knowledgeable people insist that no Qatari money is involved. Materials reviewed by the FT show that about $3bn of the total comes from sovereign governments, although they do not specify which ones, and $2bn of it from the Middle East, although the document does not say exactly where.

So, despite claims to the contrary, Qatari money was indeed involved in "bootstrapping" the Kushner bailout (based on God knows what geopolitical pressure). Now a bunch of other anonymous investors have taken their place and piled on, but admittedly, as $3 bln from sovereign governments, $2 bln from the Middle East. The potential conflicts of interest with US foreign policy are unknown (and, given recent experiences with the Trump administration, constitute a realistic, if not critical, concern).

In a complaint filed in state court Monday, the bank said it issued two mortgages totaling $31 million in 2013, but the borrower -- a limited liability company led by Mexican hotel magnate Moises Micha -- is in default.

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Just last month, the owner of the Blakely Hotel on West 55th Street told staff he was shutting down his operation because of financial pressures, a move he said was symptomatic of wider problems across the industry

The steps Macy's is taking are expected to generate annual gross savings of about $1.5 billion, which will be fully realized by the end of 2022. This year, Macy's expects to save roughly $600 million.

The data highlight a harsh reality of the U.S. economy a decade into the longest expansion on record: For people who don't make big salaries, there are fewer and fewer affordable places to go.

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Wage growth has been lackluster in recent years compared with previous periods of economic expansion, and has failed to keep pace with rental costs. The consumer price index for rent rose an average 3.2% year-over-year from 2011 through 2019, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. That outpaced average yearly earnings growth over the period of 2.4%.

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The share of low-cost units in the national rental stock shrank to 25% in 2017 from 33% in 2012 -- with the biggest declines in Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas.

"It's become very clear that inflation is the problem that central banks can solve," Battifarano said, but he pointed to Japan's prolonged economic slump as a cautionary tale of how negative interest rates can play out long-term. "Not only does it not work, it's damaging to banks' traditional spread-lending mode," he said.

According to Hoory's calculations, the factory subsidiary would send the parent company about $31 billion over 10 years -- and receive almost $70 billion in profits in return over the same period. Instead of being taxed in the U.S., where the rate was 35%, the $39 billion difference between those figures would be taxed in Puerto Rico at a rate near 0%. It was a long-term plan that could continue indefinitely.

It didn't matter that the transaction was fundamentally absurd. Microsoft would never actually sell its most valuable asset to another company, let alone to a little tropical factory. Still, there were rules for constructing and valuing deals like this, and Microsoft and KPMG set out to prove they were following them.

By every measure, it was a terrible 2019 for those in the business of owning and selling multifamily properties. The dollar value of purchases across all boroughs fell 40% from the prior year to $6.91 billion, the lowest total since 2011, according to a report by brokerage Ariel Property Advisors. There were 290 multifamily deals -- a 36% decline, and the first year with fewer than 300 transactions in records dating to 2010.

Apartments fell out of favor for investors last year as they digested New York's new rent law, which governs about 1 million apartments in the city. The overhaul took direct aim at landlords' income by making it almost impossible to raise rents, remove units from state regulation or even recoup the costs of capital improvements. In doing so, it upended a basic tenet of apartment investing: that spending on renovations could bring higher returns.

Kind of funny -- not that we're fans of rent regulation, but the rules just basically eliminate the ability of landlords and developers to boot people off of rent regulation, something you wouldn't expect to be able to do under rent regulation in the first place. This is another instance of the kind of battle between the "winners" and "left-behinds" we are seeing more and more of in our economy and polity.

Dwyer, a long-term market bull who earlier this week said it was time to take the "offense temporarily off the field" and tactically move to a neutral position on stocks, highlighted a breakdown in the three-month correlation between individual S&P 500 components and the index, which fell to its lowest level since the first week of October 2018.