What we all have been trying to understand is why so many people – good, kind, loving, caring people – are supporting and intend to vote for Donald Trump.
They have seen – as we all have – Trump’s negatives. So why and where does this support come from? We are past the racism, and sexism which has been used to explain Trump. We are looking at and talking to the many who are 120% behind Donald Trump and nothing is coming between them and the “Don”. How come!
His supporters have heard his lies and knew they were lies. They’ve heard how he treats women and know that to be true. They’ve heard about his racism and knew that also to be true. They’ve heard all the hints about his bad temper and thin skin and have seen and heard how he will quickly and viciously insult anyone who he even thinks has insulted him. They’ve heard the hints at the possibility of his being tied to the mafia – both within the United States and Internationally. And they have heard and seen how all of the greats and near greats who are greatly respected in the United States are now falling all over themselves to detach themselves from being seen as even passively supporting Donald Trump.
So why are there so many still in his camp?
Much of this support is coming from people who have been lied to – cheated – who have seen their hard earned money stolen from them by those within the system in what has been made to look like ways supported by our laws. They understand the evils of this system in which we live better than those at the top or near the top who have benefitted from the ugly ways of those who pull the strings for the money to flow from the have nots to a handful of the haves who can then step out into the spotlight looking clean, honest and working for the people. They have lived through some financial horror stories, which most people can’t or won’t believe and which no one is fixing. Given that, it is totally possible to overlook Trump’s negatives and hope that their lives will be better because Trump will fix it.
Let me give you a few examples – real life examples in which we have been involved. Having a Foundation you can use it in one of many ways. One way is to give money to be able to take a 501(c)3 deduction on your income taxes. Or, you can give money, take the deduction – which doesn’t mean a lot to you – but you take away what you really need, which is the feeling that you have helped those in need. (But you have not had to rub elbows with those in need the “Foundation” people have been hired to do that – and even the “Foundation” people keep themselves removed from the actual recipients.) Or, you can get involved, personally with the people your Foundation is working to help and therein lies the path to depression, frustration, disbelief, the death of your idols and the ideology with which you were raised, and for many, your belief in the religious structures in which you function and more.
Let me tie into the Wells Fargo mess and give you an actual example. Put yourself into this one persons’ place and then you will see Donald Trump in a very different light.
A Disclaimer: We are not advocating that you vote for Trump. That vote would only make things worse, because all of this pain and suffering we have seen would be brought into the light and done without the cover under which it now functions. Under a Donald Trump administration the front under which all of this evil operates would be stripped bare and made totally legitimate and we would then have to function seeing evil with nothing shielding us from the seriously infected swamp in which it lives.
Back to WELLS FARGO:
Why fight such a giant? What have they done? You’ve heard the Congressional hearings. You’ve read in the papers how President Stumpf has been forced to give back millions to the company. Lets take a look at the human cost to John and Jane Q. Public:
Assume you have a mortgage with Wells Fargo.
That opens you up to some incredible financial games, created by greed which has created today’s billionaires.
How?
There are many ways – this is just one.
Given your mortgage, Wells Fargo people are now able to open your finances and look in – and from what we have seen, they do just that. What do they have to gain? If they cause you financial trouble across the street, then at home, you will be subject to fees and penalties because they have set up a situation in which you stumble. If you fall, so much the better, they have everything. If you just stumble, that’s not so bad and that’s ok too because their fees are high. They benefit under either scenario.
One other way you are vulnerable to them is through their Wells Fargo Shareowners Service. A seemingly small, innocuous bureaucratic division which seemingly is quite straight forward in what it is tasked to do. A little bureaucratic place in this great giant that you probably don’t realize exists. A little place that interacts with and can control your assets in larger corporations whom they serve.
They are the agents – handling the stock transactions for several large corporations – like Target Stores. So, let us assume you have a Wells Fargo mortgage and you own Target stock. Now, lets assume that stock was purchased through Targets Direct Purchase Plan. What a benefit. You can send the company small amounts of money to purchase their stock. So you establish such an account for your children and over the years accumulate Target stock by sending them just a few dollars each month.
Those few dollars add up to a few thousands of dollars and on and on it goes.
Now comes the time you need to sell that stock. So you contact the transfer agent and ask them to send you the forms necessary for you to sell the stock. They refuse. You call again. They refuse again. And so it goes. What does that do to you? You live your financial life assuming this is an asset you can convert to cash in a matter of days – or at least in a matter of a month at the longest, given the excessive times bureaucracies take to work.
Finally – months later – after much time spent on many telephone calls, you get the forms. You fill them out and spend over $20 sending the forms back to them – the original forms – via overnight mail to insure they get where they are going and so you have a record and can trace anything that might go wrong with the mail. And then you wait – and wait – and wait. But, nothing happens. They received the correctly filled out forms the very next day. How do you know the forms are correctly filled out? Because you took them to a bank and to a stock broker friend and you and the banker and the stock broker filled them out. The banker executing a couple of the forms, as required by Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.
What happens as you wait for your money to be transferred into the account you indicated on your forms? NOTHING!
So weeks later, you call – not Target, but Wells Fargo Shareowner Services. Two large corporate entities tied together via this kind of transaction. These two corporations are also tied to tens of thousands of people with small amounts of money they have accumulated over years of sending their bits and pieces of money to purchase Target stock. There are other large corporate entities so tied together. Without knowing this you would not connect something happening to you through Target, inc. with Wells Fargo.
An interesting fact, but nothing that bothers you at the time – checking out Target to decide whether to continue investing in them at a later date you discover there is no way to contact their Executive Offices. You don’t need to, but it is curious that their CEO is totally enclosed and cut off from any and all people except those close to him. No telephone, no email, no way for the public to reach them. And this is a publicly owned corporation? So you put that aside for later review.
What happens with the stock you are trying to sell? The Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Company knows nothing about you, nor the forms you sent to them, and you have to hold on the telephone for over 45 minutes and insist and prove you sent forms to them while they search for these forms they claim to have “LOST”?
Finally, when you produce your proof of mailing, they find the forms and assure you the stock will be sold and you will be sent the money.
And then? You get a telephone call from someone else from Wells Fargo Shareowner Services days later to say your forms are being sent back to you because they are not filled out correctly. You ask why? The person on the telephone does not know. You hold on the phone and when someone finally comes back – they don’t know either.
So you get the forms back – and your finances are becoming a mess because you were selling the stock for a reason – you need the money. You have a business to expand. You have projects you have started that need more funding. You have people you have promised to help who need the help now!
And then the fun begins. For months nothing happens and you go round and round – sending letters, making telephone calls, getting nothing. And your money is still tied up in Target stock – which you cannot use as money – it is just, at this point, worthless. You can’t even sell the stock through another stock broker because you don’t have the stock certificates – Wells Fargo Shareowner Services holds those and won’t send them to you either.
An interesting side note – Target, inc. comes from Dayton-Hudson, a Minneapolis based corporation. Back in the day, Dayton-Hudson was known to be part of an interlocking directorate with influence and no inhibitions on using that influence to manipulate individuals – among other possibilities.
And remember – back a few paragraphs – your mortgage is being held by Wells Fargo. So, is this accidental with one having nothing to do with the other or is something else operating here!
And then your door bell rings. It is a Chinese Real Estate Agent who is offering to buy your property, claims she understands that you need the money and she has a client who is willing to pay cash – at half the value of the property, in a hot real estate market, where half leaves you a few million dollars short of the real value of the property, but here is the next step in this evil and greed which strips people of everything financially in the end. It is nothing you could conceive in a country which touts itself as good and other countries as evil or at best as not so good.
You turn down the real estate agent – and at first you are mystified as to why she comes to your door with such an outlandish offer. You don’t have financial problems so what is she talking about! The door is slammed with some anger because it is dawning on you that there is a connection between this and what is going on with Target, Inc. and Wells Fargo.
This story has throw backs to Pontius Pilate all throughout. He called for the bowl of water to wash his hands and symbolically wash away his guilt at what will be the unbelievably brutal killing of Jesus. This story is a modern, institutional adaptation of that old, old story which many in this society are experiencing. The symbols of the bowl of water with rag and soap have changed to new 21st century symbols of the same thing.
The realtor reappears in a few weeks. This time, after you have called and written to Wells Fargo Shareowner Services a lot – gotten angry – done lots to get your stock sold so you can move on with your financial life.. None of which was effective, even almost two years later. The Wells Fargo Shareowner Services door is solidly closed. Their refusal to sell your stock is clearly a refusal and violates everything on which this society is built. Wall Street could not function without the guarantee that you could convert your stock into cash within days. So they are violating the very foundation of our economic system and with impunity. Even contacting the SEC hasn’t helped.
You do get one foot in the door – so you think. Wells Fargo has appointed someone to investigate this stock problem. Who? Someone from their mortgage department. And who holds your mortgage? Wells Fargo!
It doesn’t dawn on you what that means. Your assumption is that this is the company process and the person appointed is probably someone they have trained and designated to head such investigations. Dumb dumb – she is with the mortgage department. What you discover in the process is that she does not have access to the people she needs to talk to, nor the records she needs to access to do an investigation. So why was she chosen to head this investigation? You gave her the right to access your records with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Company in a three way telephone call with someone from Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Department, but months later you are told that was only for that particular telephone conversation. When the three of you ended that telephone call, so did that sham of an investigation. Interestingly, you were not told that during the conversation – a conversation which was the initiation of the investigation. In fact, you were led to believe the opposite – very specifically, that she would continue the investigation and get back to you with her findings.
After this “investigation” came to an end with no results and the mortgage person told you she was in mortgages and had no access to other departments – and you asked why was she assigned to head this “investigation” given those circumstances and you didn’t get a straight answer you realize you have been played. Played to your detriment and the company’s need to buy time to make sure you were becoming more and more financially destabilized.
And then comes the real estate agent again. This time with an elderly Chinese gentleman to assure you there is a “buyer” who is willing to pay cash. And, oh by the way, you are really too old to be saddled with owning such a large house. And, oh by the way, we are willing to pay you half of what the house is worth. And oh, by the way, you should be thrilled because that will allow you a very comfortable old age – you won’t have to work anymore. And for reasons that made no sense – her last ‘oh, by the way’ was did you get out for a walk today, you need to do that, you know. With my mouth hanging open wide enough for bugs to fly in from the shock of this – she went on to say they understand we were having troubles with our mortgage and they came to help. And where did they get this information – you ask? And they answered – Wells Fargo! So you throw them off your porch – because you were astute enough not to let them into your house. And you thank God you were raised to control your anger and not revert to the most primitive kind of violence because this certainly is the point at which that would have happened if your family had not been so tenacious about raising someone who is -on the surface, at least – non-violent.
So the game continues.
Next up – Herb Chambers Automobile Sales and Honda Financial Services.
Because you have been put into this cash flow problem – you have to move assets around to have enough to make up the short fall from the money you expected from selling stock you legitimately own and have been assured, from all the federal statues, the traditions, the law which set in place the Securities and Exchange Commission, that you would be able to sell and settle in four business days. This is now over one and a half years later and even with constant telephone calls, letters, emails, the stock has not been sold.
In the process, your car note falls behind by 52 days because you were foolish enough to continue to expect the stock to be sold so you did not transfer assets needed to get all the things done you planned to do before this mess started. You pay the car note by wiring money into the bank account of the Honda Financial Services Corporation and go about your business. You have, after all, transferred the assets you need. You will be fine for months – although your business will not have the money it needs to grow according to the plans you set for it. You will have to take a little from here and there to make up for the personal financial problems you would have otherwise. So you do that.
And behold, arriving at your door is this huge truck to repossess your car. Surely they are mistaken. You owe nothing and the total balance due on the car note is very miniscule. Well, therein lies the problem. If it were a huge car note owing – no problem and no one would bother you. You would have been charged a $5 late fee, which you would pay happily because you know that was owed, but instead, here comes this truck to take away a car on which you have no monies overdue.
The truck driver is not fazed and does nothing because you have threatened him with theft, criminal trespass, fraud and a whole lot more. So he steps away and waits for his bosses to tell him what to do. He is clear that he is not going to risk being arrested.
As all of this happens you reflect back on a couple people you worked with in the past to help them save their cars from such a problem. The total pictures of what they were going through was lost on you because you still had some trust in the system and how it worked. The greed had not surfaced for you in all of its brilliant magnificence. Even as you see this truck trying to take your car, the greed intrinsic in this still has not manifest itself. This just seems like a bureaucratic mistake.
As this all plays out for you, the realization hits that the people you tried to help and who lost their cars did so because they became too afraid of the car company trying to repossess their cars. And, they never lost the expectation that there was human decency and some honesty in all of this and no one would do to them what ultimately happened. They were so wrong.
What all of the people you helped with their car problems had in common was a very small amount owing on their car and they were over 30 days past due on their current payment. You gave them their note payment, which they made to the company, but they still lost their car even though when they lost it, their car payments were up to date. How could that be? It was a mystery then, but your faith in the system didn’t lead you to tear it apart to see what was wrong. It was all revealed, however, with this experience. The evil is overwhelming. You can see it as it dances around the people with whom you are dealing – it is all bright and gold and shining unbelievably. And you thought only good was bright and shining and full of light. The society that helped raise you taught you that evil was all dark and suspicious and, well like Africans and here you were looking at evil bright and gold and shining unbelievably. What a break through moment!
What was the difference between you and the people you tried to help? You were calling the police to have this repossession guy arrested. The people you moved to help were too afraid to do that and instead put their faith in the goodness of the company. So they lost their cars. And what happened to their cars? With the balance owing on their car being under $3,000 and they having used the money you gave them to bring their monthly payments up to date and the car company demanding that they pay twice that because since they were behind and a repossession notice had been issued, their cars could not be released until the payment they had already made was made again. The fact that the car company had received their cash and put it in their bank account, but still demanded that the amount due – even though it had been paid – be paid again either by bringing cash to the company or sending cash via Western Union’s “Quick Collect” – those car owners were lost. They didn’t have the car payment they were behind – we gave them that. Once that was paid they were too ashamed to come back to us to ask for their car payment twice – they thought we would not understand and would think they were trying to game us.
So, being too ashamed to come back to us to ask for their car payment twice or to tell us what happened – something they didn’t understand and didn’t know how to explain, they just kept quiet and lost their cars. Apparently, Honda Financial Services depended upon that and knew this was the normal outcome.
Once the car payment was made a second time – according to Honda Financial Services employees, – the cash received by them would be refunded, their car would be released and everybody would be happy. Since we had given folks the money to make the car payment, they clearly did not have money to pay it again and were too embarrassed to come back to us for more money so they lost their cars. That part of the story we didn’t know and didn’t understand until now.
What happened to the cars? With less than a $3,000 balance due – the cars were sold in the used car lot for over $10,000 and who made out with a substantial profit? Not the original owner, because title was transferred away from them before the sale was made so they had no right to pay Honda what was due and keep the balance.
So, with no money to buy another car and with the car company having wrecked their credit – the car company experiences yet another dividend. The people so negatively affected could buy another car from the same company – but they would have to pay very high interest and make two monthly payments – one for the downpayment, and one for the regular payment for the car. A couple people we tried to help did that and nearly killed themselves in the process. We lost track of them so we don’t know how that story ended.
But I am getting ahead of myself in this story.
What we experienced from Herb Chambers and Honda Financial Services was a demand for a second payment of the monthly car payment even though there was no payment due. They tried shame; threats; acknowledged they had received the monies sent to them; that the account was not delinquent on any level; but they still demanded the amount due be paid again and even though they had received the cash which brought the account up to date, we would have to either bring them cash for that exact amount or send them a Western Union “Quick Collect” amount. After they received that Western Union money or we brought them cash to their company, they would take the cash they had already received out of their account and, in due time, send it to us as a refund. They claimed this demand was legal. It was amazing! What they were demanding was totally illegal and as of today we have not received a refund nor has the second payment been credited to our account. WOW!
We wanted an explanation as to why they could not keep the money already in their account – why they wanted us to bring them cash so they then could take the cash previously sent to them and received by them out of their account and send it to us as a refund. It is the demand which made the people we helped lose their cars. The expectation was that you would not be able to pay this second amount demanded because you had been late on the first payment. So they were foaming at the mouth looking at a car that they could sell and make a very substantial profit on,for their company, showing they had done an excellent job.
They became so helpful at this point. They would see to it that the car was returned as soon as we notified them this second payment had been made and they would do everything possible to make sure we would not have to wait a moment longer than necessary for the return of the car. When we brought them this second payment they would contact the repossession company and have our car released immediately. What they didn’t realize was that they didn’t have possession of the car throughout all of this because the car repossession guy had gone home without the car. He got the message, did not want to be arrested, because he knew what he was doing was illegal.
We sent the second amount via Western Union because we wanted to follow this through to the end. When we called to verify that the monies had been sent and received by them, according to Western Union, we couldn’t help but notice the disappointment and surprise in the voice of the person from Honda Financial Services with whom we spoke.
When we realized what the people we were helping had gone through and some were still going through, it was beyond belief. It began to dawn on us the extent of the fraud involved and how intimidating the people were who were practiced at this. How many people have so suffered. Most people have buckled under this kind of thing. We tend to be mean and angry so we call out the police, the attorneys, the relevant governmental departments and agencies involved and everyone we know, to attack.
What makes this possible and why is it so widespread? SHAME! People are ashamed even when they are being ripped off
We have no shame. We are outraged. And unfortunately for those trying to rip us off, we were not broke – we simply had a transfer of assets problem and in that situation many are caught unawares that this is what happens to people who are actually in a financial bind. Everything they have is taken away. Stripped away with great glee. It is amazing to see how unprincipled, how greedy, how many lies people will tell to strip another person of their money and assets.
What is even more alarming – the people doing the stripping don’t benefit from what they have ‘stolen’. The company for which they work benefits. And in that company, the people at the top of those companies benefit. Those doing the stripping are simply allowed to keep their jobs and, in the evenings, to sit by the fireplace to watch the flames that will consume them when they die – and they will not even have had the benefits of the ill-gotten gains they made possible for others to enjoy. A very few others, but others indeed.
This has been an experience we are going to push to the limits because this needs to stop. We realize we won’t be able to stop it – its like using a small wooden fence to stop a tsunami, but we are not going to sit by and let that tsunami swamp everything without trying to stop it.
This experience did enlighten us as to why so many people are willing to overlook Trump’s negatives and support him. They are looking for relief from an extremely oppressive system. If you dig into the past of many Trump supporters you will find a situation much more dire than the one I have described to you because at some point, someone in their family has probably been made destitute by these machinations.
As for us – we are supporting Hillary Clinton. Our more sane side has won and we realize that what we described will only be made worse by someone like Donald Trump coming into office. We are sure he has had enough experience to know how to take advantage. What those supporting the “Don” don’t realize is that he has done some of what I described above. Not the same particulars, but in his own corporate way he has made many people destitute – many others have lost their businesses because of his greed and on and on and on. But those who have gone through this kind of thing are looking for a way out and someone to come to their aid and they see that someone as Donald Trump.
Clear your eyes people. He will only make a bad scene worse.
We don’t know where the solution lies, but we are going to continue to move the needle and do what we can to expose and stop these scams – thefts – destructions – horriblenesses of this system out of control. It is time for that 1% to get real and do something to level the playing field instead of stealing all the turf and exposing the swamp underneath.
Wasn’t it an emperor of Russia who had a wonderful life until the peasants revolted? And the king of France? And many others, who were so busy ripping off their citizens that they didn’t realize they had gone too far until the ax fell on their heads wielded by the very citizens whose economic and financial lives they were destroying.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
We Heard Your Call to Investigate and Write!
January 8th, 2017To the editor:
Thank you for that blog. We – me and a small group of friends – heard your call to investigate and put together the pieces we have and write about what is happening. We are going to do exactly that and hope others will follow suit.
We have a little information, but need to expand on it so we are going to contact who we need to contact and you will soon hear from us. I am writing this because I hope others do the same.
Some of us can put our names out there. Others, who are still dependent upon their jobs, can’t. Can we still send you a blog and you will publish it anonymously?
Answer:
Yes! We will publish it anonymously, as long as we know who you are and we know you are a real person. You have to identify yourself to us, but we will keep your identity close. It does not have to be sent with your blog, but you will have to then call, write, or somehow contact us to let us know who you are and your identity has to check out.
Thank you for caring. If we all come together on this, maybe we can save a little bit of the country we know and love from what is about to happen here.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, Guest Comments, politics, Racism, Scattering Sale, Sexism
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Blog Response, Donald Trump, Guest comments, politics, U. S. Presidential Campaign | Comments Off on We Heard Your Call to Investigate and Write!