Time to switch to Wells Fargo
Due to a series of circumstances involving U of M licensing deals and general laziness, I have a TCF Bank account. Even after I learned TCF employees are Minnesota's largest donor to the Republican Party, I kept it. I think it's time to switch.
In an absolutely bizarre move, the CEO of TCF is pulling all advertising from the Star Tribune (reputed to cost the paper $250,000) due to the ongoing Nick Coleman/Power Line feud (Chris posted some thoughts on this last week). Scott "Big Trunk" Johnson is a VP at TCF.
Via Norwegianity.
posted by Luke Francl @ 10:10 PM |
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10 Comments:
Huh. Let's see if I've got this straight.
TCF does a $250k a year business with the Strickle.
The Strickle runs a column that suggests that everyone should pull their money out of TCF because an employee writes a conservative blog.
So TCF's CEO decides to take his business elsewhere.
This is called excersizing a fiduciary responsibility. It's a very big word that means Cooper is charged with handling TCF's stockholder and customer investments with their best interests in mind.
Doing business with an advertiser who slams your business isn't in the best interests of TCF's stakeholders.
I'm betting your boss would be upset if the Strickle ran commentaries that suggested we should all refrain from eating Big Mac's because a bunch of Mc Donalds employees write a confused mish-mash of psuedo-Socialist and anti-American crap and publish it on the internet.
The City Pages article tells us something else about Cooper that further explains what motivates him:
"Last year, he spent about $10,000 fighting a ticket he was issued for speeding on a snowmobile on Lake Minnetonka."
There is a phrase that defines this kind of thing..um, er, oh yea "standing on principle".
Principle.
It's the thing you bulletheads are always writing about over here. Look's different in person than the picture you have in your cartoon bubble doesn't it.
Means some guys will spend $10k to fight a $10.00 ticket they don't think they deserve. Some people believe there is right and wrong.
So go ahead and pull your $39.95 out of TCF Luke. It won't even be noticed by them, but I understand why you'd do it anyway; even if you don't.
Wow, Swiftee makes a insightful post that conveys complete thoughts while only being vaguely insulting.
On the otherhand Luke makes a completely non-sensical statement that calls choosing advertising partners that reflect well on your business and dropping those that insult you "an absolutely bizarre move."
Newsflash, while this may not apply to Government workers, insulting your customers causes them to take their business elsewhere.
Cooper can do whatever he wants with his money. I have less, but I can do the same.
It's tit-for-tat. He makes politically motivated moves with his company; I stop using his services (and start earning 4% interest -- I should've done this a long time ago). While it is slightly more than the $39.95 Tom slighted me with, I doubt TCF will notice. That's OK. After all, it's about principle (and 4% interest).
"The Strickle runs a column that suggests that everyone should pull their money out of TCF because an employee writes a conservative blog."
From Coleman's column on the 29th of December:
2) "We keep it very much separate from our day jobs," said Hinderaker, meaning the boys don't blog at work.
But they do. Johnson recently had time at his bank job to post a despicable item sliming Sen. Mark Dayton. If I had the money they think I do, I'd put it all in TCF. Then I'd pull it out.That's what's getting Cooper in a tizzy? That's Nick Coleman's call for (liberal?) TCF customers to make a run on the bank and go somewhere else? I never knew Coleman wielded so much power! Perhaps I can e-mail him and ask him to make a hypothetical reference to buying me a beer every time I go out with friends. Imagine the power!
It's not Scott Johnson's free speech that's at issue.
What a crock. What a flimsy smokescreen.
The issue is this: If you bank at TCF, some of your money is likely paying Scott Johnson to write a very right-wing blog.
I asked Scott, point-blank: "How do you guys find time to blog? Does TCF know you're blogging, Scott?" He shifted in his chair and responded in a lawyerly fashion. "Well.... it's a difficult question..." Then he said he tries to write in the morning before work. Which is true, he writes a lot of early-morning posts. But let's look at the workday times of a few of Scott's posts in late-October:
OCT 29
3:59 pm
2:02 pm
OCT 28
5:44 pm
5:06 pm
OCT 27
3:22 pm
2:33 pm
11:21 am
10:16 am
OCT 19
11:55 am
10:36 am
10:05 am
OCT 18
11:59 am
10:54 am
9:54 am
There are plenty more, these are just a few blatant examples. Obviously when he's posting 3 or 4 times a day during work hours - considering the amount of research and writing time behind each post, and his salary - a nice chunk of your TCF interest and service fees are going directly to an extreme right-wing weblog. These are people who believe most Democrats are a betrayal of America.
Get your money out of TCF and into a credit union.
My response:
http://www.shotinthedark.info/archives/004889.html
As to Chuck's comment: Baloney. Scott Johnson - one of the biggest workaholics I know - is a Vice President in charge of TCF's legal affairs. His performance is measured by how well TCF's legal affairs go - and they're going well - not how much of the day he spends with his nose against a monitor. If he spends a few minutes occasionally posting from work (during the much-more-than 8 hours a day he spends there), it has nothing to do with whether or not TCF's customers are getting their money's worth.
As to your last bit, about TCF money going to support a "far right wing" blog - that money is called "a salary", and is that a road you really want to go down? You want employers to vet peoples' politics before hiring them? You want the consumer to consider employees' individual politics when consuming?
You're a freelancer at KTCA, Chuck? Shall all non-lefty-moonbats (:-)) withdraw their support from Public TV just because you get paid there? (I'm sure you're the only Democrat in the building, naturally).
IS that the way you want to go?
And as I said in my post, focusing on Johnson is wrong; the point is, TCF is holding Nick Coleman accountable for what in the end were defamatory, borderline actionable statements. This whole thread is missing the point.
Mitch: I'm completely independent, so I'm immune from those charges now. :-)
But yes, I used to be a salaried employee at TPT, and yes I blogged at work sometimes.
You know what else? I was expected to be in the building during work hours, doing company work. They sure as hell weren't paying me to blog, or work on my documentary. Sure, I could get away with a little of that. But I had to resign to gain complete independence to blog/film/etc. on my own watch.
I don't doubt Scott is a hard-working guy. He posts at every odd hour, and he's a fine fellow. But looking at those multi-post days, it's pretty obvious he's spent a more than "a few minutes" blogging from his TCF desk. Try hours and hours. In positions like Scott's and Hinderaker's, you can probably get away with that - you're trusted to manage your time. Many people would get in trouble - or fired - for abusing that flexibility.
So the claim that they very much keep blogging separate from work - well that's baloney. When you blog as much as they were before the election, I guarantee you blogging ate into their family life and their work life.
So this gets back to Nick Coleman's criticism. Yes, most of his column is a murky puddle of grumpitude. But this point - that Power Line is being disengenuous about Separation of Work and Blog - is completely accurate. Nick is justified saying Scott finds time to post on right-wing politics while at his bank job. Clearly he has and does. He's also justified in not wanting his money going into TCF's pockets for that reason.
TCF is withdrawing it's ad dollars because Nick's statement - BUT Nick's statement is true!
So you see -- the big problem here is TCF throwing it's advertising money around to punish an editorial writer at the Star Tribune. Don't write anything bad about TCF, especially our Republican brethren. We don't care if it's true or not - we'll yank our ad bucks. That's fucked up and wrong. We are opposed to big money having that kind of good ol' boy gansterish influence, Mitch - don't you see?
Give me a fucking break #1: Oh, Bill Cooper never heard of this "Power Line" until reading about it in Time magazine. Pssssheah, right! Idiot.
Give me a fucking break #2: Yeah Mitch, I want employers to require a political alignment test before hiring anyone. *rolls eyes really really hard until they bleed*
Having just moved back to the Twin Cities, and having the opportunity to open a new banking account, I chose Wells Fargo over my previous bank, Twin Cities Financial. This was three weeks ago, for the record, and Powerline's affiliation with TCF made the decision.
It wasn't part of an organized boycott, or an overtly conscious decision that required much deliberation, but it wasn't a difficult decision to make. I don't want one penny of my hard earned money to go anyone at Powerline.
I could give a shit about who blogs from work, who puts in long days, or who's mad at who. There might be a thousand right wing blogs originating from the wells fargo building, but the bottom line is its my money, I get to do with it what I like. The same goes for TCFs advertising dollars and luke's money. Its money, its meant to be a source of influence and persuasion.
employers to require a political alignment test before hiring anyone.
Only in academia, union work and the main stream media.
I decided never to put my money in TCF when I first started attending the University of Minnesota and they had a partnership with TCF. Inappropriate, in my view.
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