This is what the 2016 Republican platform says about Social Security. It's really a pile of substance-averse mush, but the implications of it are clear.

We reject the old maxim that Social Security is the "Third Rail" of American politics, deadly for anyone who would change it. The Democratic Party still treats it that way, even though everyone knows that its current course will lead to a financial and social disaster. Younger Americans have lost all faith in the program and expect little return for what they are paying into it. As the party of America's future, we accept the responsibility to preserve and modernize a system of retirement security forged in an old industrial era beyond the memory of most Americans. Current retirees and those close to retirement can be assured of their benefits. Of the many reforms being proposed, all options should be considered to preserve Social Security. As Republicans, we oppose tax increases and believe in the power of markets to create wealth and to help secure the future of our Social Security system. Saving Social Security is more than a challenge. It is our moral obligation to those who trusted in the government's word.

Hey, I've got an idea. Let's let folks take the money that Social Security takes out of their paychecks and invest it in the big ol' casino in lower Manhattan.

Yeah, that's the ticket, right, CNN Money?

On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo (WFC) employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts—without their customers knowing it—since 2011. The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money. "Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses," Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

Again, the CFPB is the brainchild of Senator Professor Warren, whom the Republicans brilliantly kept from being its director so that she could run for the Senate, where she can really stick it to them, day after day. It has saved ordinary Americans billions of dollars already.

The Republican Party considers the CFPB to be an example of "onerous regulation" and has vowed to kill it dead so that Americans can be free to get swindled by these sharpers.

The scope of the scandal is shocking. An analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo concluded that bank employees opened over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized. The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent, regulators say. The CFPB described this practice as "widespread." Customers were being charged for insufficient funds or overdraft fees—because there wasn't enough money in their original accounts. Additionally, Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit card accounts without their customers' knowledge or consent. Roughly 14,000 of those accounts incurred over $400,000 in fees, including annual fees, interest charges and overdraft-protection fees.

There are days when I sadly contemplate the possibility that the American imagination is now solely the property of a bunch of crooks with spreadsheets. You have to give it to them. Eight years after their industry nearly incinerated the entire world economy, they're still coming up with new and spectacular ways to steal money from their customers. It is really a remarkable thing, if predatory pillage is your thing.

Wells Fargo is being slapped with the largest penalty since the CFPB was founded in 2011. The bank agreed to pay $185 million in fines, along with $5 million to refund customers. "We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request," Wells Fargo said in a statement.

Apparently, it is the position of WF that 5,300 of its employees all had the same great idea for massive consumer fraud largely independent of one another. The problem is, even if this were true, and it's not entirely implausible that some variation of the argument might be, this says something truly awful about the company's upper management and the culture that has developed at all levels of the institution. A den of thieves, with elevators and Christmas bonuses. The truest thing that Bernie Sanders said in his stump speech always was that the basic business plan of this industry is fraud. It also was one of the few examples of understatement he allowed himself.

Elsewhere on the trail, Tailgunner Ted Cruz summed up the Republican position.

"Don't let the name fool you, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does little to protect consumers. The agency continues to grow in power and magnitude without any accountability to Congress and the people. The only way to stop this runaway agency is by eliminating it altogether," Sen. Cruz stated. "The legislation that Rep. Ratcliffe and I are introducing today gives Congress the opportunity to free consumers and small businesses from the CFPB's regulatory blockades and financial activism, which stunt economic growth. While there's much more to do to scale back the harmful regulatory impositions of Dodd-Frank, this legislation takes a critical step in the right direction. So today let's celebrate the CFPB's fourth and final anniversary," Sen. Cruz concluded.

Two million ghost accounts.

Small price to pay for freedom, suckers.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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