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MarketWatch First Take
May 3, 2011, 12:25 p.m. EDT
By MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) "” America hates Wall Street.
What other conclusion can be drawn from the latest poll on corporate reputation released Tuesday by Harris Interactive? Of the 10 companies ranked at the bottom of the list, five are financial institutions, and seven took bailouts. See Harris Interactive report on corporate reputation (pdf) .
In order, from least despised to purely despicable, were J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!jpm/quotes/nls/jpm JPM +1.55% , Bank of America Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!bac/quotes/nls/bac BAC +2.52% , Citigroup Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c C +0.78% , Goldman Sachs Group Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!gs/quotes/nls/gs GS +0.19% and, America, your most despised institution: American International Group Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!aig/quotes/nls/aig AIG +1.17%
Nonfinancial bailout babies that made the bottom 10: General Motors Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!gm/quotes/nls/gm GM +2.55% and Chrysler Group.
That's not simply underperformance; it's a stranglehold on pathetic.
It's not hard to understand how and why people are angry at big finance. There were the bailouts, of course, but for years these institutions have been predatory in the way they deal with their retail customers.
The disgust they show the people who pay them for a service only has become more apparent, as credit-card fees have risen, bonuses have exploded and credit has been cut off. The big banks also have made Scrooge look like a philanthropist as they pursue foreclosures.
It's only when you consider the other institutions that live on the bottom rungs of the survey that you get a sense of how despised the banks are. There's Delta Airlines Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!dal/quotes/nls/dal DAL +0.57% , the airline industry's gift to chiropractors and bait-and-switch pricing. And 11th from the bottom, there's your "sometime between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m." cable company Comcast Corp. /quotes/comstock/15*!cmcsa/quotes/nls/cmcsa CMCSA -1.01% . At No. 2, BP PLC /quotes/comstock/13*!bp/quotes/nls/bp BP -2.35% , which the Onion so exquisitely pointed out is "ready to resume oil spilling" again. See Onion news parody of BP .
Cash back? Low APR? Find the features you want "” and the pitfalls to avoid.
If Osama bin Laden ran a company, he couldn't crack the list.
The problem, of course, is that for all the surveys in which a variety of Wall Street institutions finish last, there is a common thread: None of the companies seems to care.
"” David Weidner
"$PFE reported modestly higher first-quarter earnings due in part to a lower #tax rate http://bit.ly/j2XdGH" 1:12 p.m. EDT, May 3, 2011 from MarketWatch
"The U.S. #markets have started May on a sluggish note following last month's technical breakout. http://bit.ly/mByQdf" 12:22 p.m. EDT, May 3, 2011 from MarketWatch
"Dozens of 'erroneous' after-hours trades canceled http://on.mktw.net/lB85XT" 12:00 p.m. EDT, May 3, 2011 from MarketWatch
"10 rules for rookie day traders http://bit.ly/lXuQ7U" 11:48 a.m. EDT, May 3, 2011 from MarketWatch
"Ford domestic sales up more than16% in April http://on.mktw.net/mxmNsu" 11:23 a.m. EDT, May 3, 2011 from MarketWatch
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