Wells Fargo is generous to the community — and its CEO

United Way of Central Maryland CEO Mark Furst thinks that Wells Fargo Bank has been good for Baltimore, and he may well be right (Readers respond, Sept. 20). But I have one problem with them, and it involves the pay and bonuses for their executives.

First, if you had any money left after the disastrous last few years and put it into a savings account at Wells Fargo (or any bank, for that mater), you would receive 0.1 percent or less in interest! On the other hand, the CEO of Wells Fargo was paid $53 million last year. (And that was just the CEO; doubtless if you include all the other highly paid executives of that bank, it runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.)

Where do you suppose that money came from? Certainly not out of thin air! It came from us, customers of Wells Fargo who are robbed by receiving virtually no interest on money put into their "savings" accounts, and by paying excessive charges for anything that the bank can dream up that we did, or may have done, or might do, or didn't do, or might not do. They must lie awake at night thinking up ways to drag that last remaining dollar that their few remaining customers have, or might have. Then they give that money that we foolishly thought we would save for our retirement to their ridiculously overpaid executives as bonuses for "a job well done"! Disgusting.

David A Liddle