What do Steven Slater, the Barefoot Bandit, Wells Fargo and Apple all have in common?

Let’s look at some of the cultural stars of the summer of 2010:

> The Jet Blue flight attendant who wouldn’t bandage his head cut and couldn’t wait a few more minutes to visit the airport bar.

Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation.

> The 19-year-old man, a future movie subject no doubt, who ransacked homes, stole airplanes and eluded police.

Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation.

> The big national bank ordered last week to pay California customers $203 million in restitution claims because a judge found it had manipulated transactions to boost the overdraft fees it could charge its own customers.

Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation.

> The iconic techno company that knowingly lied for years about the strength of its signal bars on iPhones.

Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation.

Every summer has its own personality. The hot summer of 2010 will be remembered for a growing despair among the people, as the economy turned downward, once again.

Amid this, we gasp at the successes (through his life’s failures) of the Barefoot Bandit, aka Colton Harris-Moore. We marvel at the chutzpah of Steven Slater, the airline attendant who now says he wants his old job back.

We give Steve Jobs and Apple a pass on the phone screen that lied to its customers for every day of usage. Well, he put up a slide that acknowledged, “We’re not perfect.”

And we accept the Wells Fargo court finding as business as usual in America, even though, U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote, “The bank’s dominant , indeed sole, motive was to maximize the number of overdrafts and squeeze as much as possible” out of overdrawn customers. This story did not receive the attention it deserved (hence this quick post).

In your mind, how you would rank these poor acts of citizenship during the summer of 2010 in terms of their maximum damage to the American culture? And to you?

For me, the least upsetting is the Barefoot Bandit. My house wasn’t involved, and he didn’t steal my airplane (cause I don’t have one). He’s an amusing distraction. Look for the movie out next fall. Perfect, since he seems like a character out of the 1930s anyway.

#3 in harm is Apple. Any company that takes over the music industry and is about to take over the publishing industry is actually worthy of being a villain in a James Bond movie. Too big for its own good. But I don’t care. I’ve got a Blackberry.

Runner-up for most heinous is the Jet Blue dude. He’s in charge of the safety and well being of those passengers. They come first — or at least they’re supposed to. The only good he did was expose the lax security for those leaving JFK Airport. As one spokesman said, we’re good at watching who enters the airport; we’re not so good at watching them leave.

The winner? For me, founder of Watchdog Nation, it’s a no brainer: Wells Fargo.

You hurt your own customers.  You processed their biggest payments first, which increased your income from overdraft charges. Meanwhile, penalties for smaller charges piled up on customers, causing tremendous harm for them, and now, finally, great shame for you.

The Barefoot Bandit and the others have nothing on you.  They are a distraction. You took money that a judge says doesn’t belong to you. From your own customers!

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

Dave Lieber book that won two national awards for social change.