Banks - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for the ‘Banks’ Category

Real Estate – Is this the cause of the extreme racism which refuses to break and go away?

Tuesday, June 28th, 2022

Because of the business we were in, we spent many years closely aligned with the real estate community. During that time our discoveries were shocking and as we try to sell our house all the lessons we learned and tried to address are incorporated in that attempt.

The racism in the real estate industry is well known. We should say – the bigotry – since these actions include more than African Americans. The fact that it has been impossible to eradicate or even mitigate is also well known. Attempts to end/change the structure and how realtors, developers, contractors and all those others aligned with the real estate community, have been notoriously unsuccessful.

Decades ago, there was one big attempt – which everyone thought was brilliant and would make major changes in the apartheid engaged in by the real estate community – it did not.

For a time, if you wanted to rent an apartment, condo, house, etc. and you were turned down or games were played with you so you would not be able to gain the home you wanted, there was recourse. Once you made a complaint to your local or federal Human Rights office they would start the investigation by sending a white family behind the minority family that felt discriminated against in the rejection of their offer to rent or buy the house of their dreams (or the house which fit their pocketbook). Many such cases, after that kind of test, were won and damages paid. However, that did not even put a dent into changing the way racism is institutionalized in the real estate industry.

Neighborhoods and so therefore schools, remain segregated; churches were the most segregated of all and all the trappings that went with the kind of racism maintained by this real estate community remained in place for all to experience.

Today, that bigotry is still practiced. It is more sophisticated, but still in existence and tightly controlled.

Working with realtors in maintaining this system are banks and other lending institutions. After banks fail to maintain residential bigotry it is the turn of the employers of the people trying to rent or buy in what today are still redlined houses and/or neighborhoods.

How does this happen so consistently:

  1. We live in a very racist, sexist, etc. society. From birth we are trained in how to be a bigot. Some of us take to that training like a duck takes to water. Others have some brakes applied and are never quite comfortable, but the everyday things one has to do to maintain a sense of being “better than” infects us all – white, black, latinx, LGBTQ+, muslim, etc. Some fight against the need to be superior to and others just accept their unearned status and do what is necessary to keep it going.

2. What does that include? Well, the first line of defense against ‘diverse neighborhoods” is with the home-owner and/or the real estate agent showing the property. The wrong person shows up and that person experiences foot dragging, obfuscation, excuses, everything that can be thrown up to keep them from wanting to move ahead with the sale or rental of that particular property. Real Estate Agents have been known to bring up another property – supposedly a better buy and one more suited for the client – and in a more acceptable neighborhood for that particular person. When all else fails, the property is taken off the market until a better time to list it for sale. After that particular minority has moved on? Before others get the same idea and start to look at that house? Whatever the reason given the house comes back on the market after a time and we start all over again.

3. f the person looking for housing perseveres and somehow gets past that first obstacle, It is then up to the financial institutions. Banks are better at this than others, but they all come together for the same result. Keep people in neighborhoods with their own kind and especially keep them out of the most prestigious white northern european neighborhoods. Even in those neighborhoods an occasional minority can buy as long as it is not one of the houses really off-limits to non-whites.

Banks have myriad ways they block the sale of houses which were “redlined”, but today not called such. The understanding is there anyway. Not a relevant word need be spoken – which allows for denial. Always make sure there is the ability to deny what you are actually doing.

4. If a minority through some miracle makes it past the financial institutions, the employer is next up to keep the societal segregation. We have seen this happen over and over again. It is a perfect set-up for denial. The person who has been so successful is making it past society’s barriers to ‘diversity’ in housing hits his/her employer and gets fired. The quicker the firing to the date of purchasing the new house the better.

Once fired, it is all downhill from there and the new employee or older employee who moved into the ‘wrong’ house very seldom connects his/her firing to the home purchase. A few have made that connection immediately because they are conscious of the barriers they have crossed and have an understanding of institutional racism. Those who have ‘smoked the pipe’ even when told what has happened and why are too dazed to pick it up.

The person so fired just picks up, gathers up, does whatever is necessary to survive financially and moves on.

Employers have far more ways to accomplish getting a non-white person out of a house they should not have been allowed to buy in the first place and they use them all when necessary.

5. After this comes the time for a minority who has managed to stay in a house so “redlined” to sell and move on. Then the fun starts because the end result changes. It is not to keep other minorities out of the neighborhood and out of that house. They have probably lived there many years. Uncomfortably with lots of racist happenings, but this is a new game.

The goal of this game is to make sure that minority leaves the neighborhood he/she should not have been allowed to inhabit in the first place with as little wealth as possible.

That is a game which would make an intensely interesting game of chess pale by comparison and that is for another article.

Structural Racism/Rittenhouse/Blacks & Jews

Monday, November 22nd, 2021

by: Marceline Donaldson

A huge topic and we will not even skim the surface.

Racism, when it has become “structured” into a society and into its institutions, is a very complex thing. We like to think it is an “unfortunate incident” which happened because the person to whom it happened was complicit in some way. It is not. Every action you take is governed by the bigotry structured into the society in which you live which has successfully structured that bigotry into every core and every cell of its existence. The experience of bigotry is not a one time experience. It is all day everyday for those who are the “minority.” It is also an all day everyday experience for those who are “white.” Their lives move ahead beyond their talents and contributions to this society because of the fact that they are in the “better than” group.

Step out of your house and it starts. Stay in your house where bigotry wafts in with the very air you breathe – it is constantly ongoing and just as constantly denied. Bigotry happens – denial follows and is given credibility.

The United States has much to deal with to become the society it claims to be and the main thing is its bigotry which was installed at its beginnings with the way American Indians were treated and with slavery.

The Rittenhouse case deals mainly with the structural/institutional racism of the Court system. It has been a showcase for all to see how this structural racism works – how and why it was set up – what is to be gained by the “better than” group through the existence of institutional racism.

My background and growing up years is totally intertwined with what happened in the Courts and with what happened on the streets which came before today’s Court system. This “street happening” brings to the forefront the relationship between Blacks and Jews – which is fraught with much bigotry itself and so much more.

What didn’t come out to the general public, until after the verdict is that the men killed were Jews. They were characterized and described as “white.” That is far from the truth. Maybe it is my age, but I remember when Jews were as ostracized as blacks and when the “n” word was applied and Jews were called that and worse – all names most blacks would know and recognize. It is thought today that those words applied only to Blacks. Blacks were and are called “nigg…”. They are not the only group so called by the Northern European-ancestry group. It is spread around to the rest of the world encouraging it to pick up and use those names. East Indians are another group to whom the “n” word was applied, especially when England colonized their country.

Let me give you an example of black/jewish relationships and what happens in these United States – from my own background:

Way back when I was a young child my grandfather used to bring me regularly to #1 Audubon Place in New Orleans when he picked me up (grandparents visiting rights) and he had business with Sam Zemurray or just went to visit. I loved the house. I especially loved the dining room with its spanish feel and walking through the wrought iron decorative gates into the dining room.

My grandfather would announce his appearance by calling out to the cooks to put water in the soup because O.C.W. had arrived. Everyone thought that was funny. I also spent many a summer’s day at the Zemurray home outside of New Orleans. A kind of life I loved and embraced quickly. When we arrived, my grandfather was there to visit with Sam Zemurray and someone working on the estate was called to take care of me. Mostly that meant taking me out in a canoe on a pond from which we could see people walking around in the distance which I was told was to admire the azalea garden open to the public. I never did see that azalea garden, but I saw pieces of it because whenever a shipment of azaleas arrived at the Zemurray estate my grandfather was called and we went out to pick up the latest truly beautiful plant for his garden. Before he died my grandfather had an exquisite azalea garden in his front and back yards all from those shipments.

Other times, we went to one or the other Zemurray estate because my grandfather, with his Columbia University education, tutored two of the Zemurray children. My grandmother was a regular visitor with her skills put to use and my mother was named Doris Taylor after Doris Zemurray – Sam Zemurrays’ daughter.

It is a long involved story which needs to be told in full because it shows the beginnings of a corporation which today is dumped on because of how it developed. The story of its Black/Jewish start is nowhere to be found. That has been “whitewashed.” Could that be the history those in control wanted to hide and wound up instead with a company considered “inhumane” by others?

My great-grandfather was an Episcopal priest. He was the Rev. Dr. David Franklin Taylor. There was a strong connection between one Jewish family and one Black family way back when. My great-grandfather was a close friend of “old man”Zemurray”, the founder of United Fruit. A company which today has a horrendous reputation including in the fields of racism and more. Back then it was clear and uncontroverted that the company was founded by a Jew, but grew because of this alliance between this one Black family and this one Jewish family.

“old man” Zemurray, as he was called then, founded United Fruit by going to the docks in New Orleans with an ice cream-type push cart. The kind that would appear in most neighborhoods with the man pushing the ice cream cart jingling his bells and calling out for the children to hear and they came running with their nickels and dimes to buy ice cream.

In New Orleans there was more than one kind of such push cart. Hot tamales were sold on the street in the same way. As I recall, a dozen hot tamales from such a cart cost 45 cents.

In New Orleans, “old man Zemurray” had such a cart full of ripe bananas he picked up from the docks and some given to him by those on the ships that came into the docks. They could not be sold to the stores, for which the other bananas were sent because they were ripe and they would be black by the time they reached the stores for which they were intended. Zemurray’s business grew rapidly. He had a business selling a product for which he paid nothing. So very quickly, he went from the push cart selling bananas on the street, which is how he started United Fruit, to a business hiring employees mostly from Honduras.

Mr. Zemurray’s problems grew with his business, as happens to most who start new businesses. His were mostly personnel related. The people who came to the United States to work at United Fruit came from Honduras and had a very different culture, a different way of living and that began to cause major problems. My great-grandfather was the priest/rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (a part of the Anglican communion). Most, if not all of those from Honduras were members of that Anglican communion and so Rev. Dr. Taylor and Mr. Zemurray formed an alliance beyond friendship into business. Rev. Taylor would work with the people United Fruit employed to help them acclimate to this American culture and Mr. Zemurray was then free to dramatically grow his business.

Today, United Fruit is a huge corporation, but that Black/Jewish beginning is almost lost in history. In today’s world it would be seen very differently from what it actually was. It was beginning to lose that history when I was growing up because Jews were beginning to call themselves “white” and the general U. S. society could not see such an alliance and friendship as one amongst equals as existed between the man who founded United Fruit and the man who was responsible for a serious part of its early growth. When I was a small child, the stories and the talk were about how United Fruit would not have existed or grown as it did without the friendship and working together of those two men – the Jew and the Black. Back then Jews were not hired to work regular jobs. In fact, it is within my lifetime that banks went from hiring no Jews to now hiring Jews for jobs up and down the bank ladder. Jews back then had to either start their own company or find some other independent way to make a living. That is what Mr. Zemurray was doing. Looking back into that history from today, it is easy to re-write it so that its real beginnings are “cleaned-up”.

When I became an adult the relationship between Blacks and Jews remained, but had changed. There were many Jews around Martin Luther King and the black civil rights movement. They were there because they were experiencing bigotry because of their Jewishness; they were struggling to overcome the “n” word and all that it implied; and they were fighting for the freedom and equality of both groups. In many places where you had to fill out forms, it was clear that Jews could not fill out and check “white’ as many do today.

All throughout the Jewish community in this country and abroad there was that alliance. Sadly, it has substantially diminished because many Jews see themselves as a part of the Northern European-ancestry group and discriminate against Blacks the same way they do.

Before we get too ‘sanctified’ I think I need to point out here that there are many Blacks who have taken the same route. The more money the more they feel “different from” those with the same skin tones and the more justified they feel in doing to other blacks what was done to them and/or their ancestors.

What the Rittenhouse case surfaced is the fact that there are still many Jews working in civil rights groups with Blacks to gain equality for both groups and so the two Jews who were killed by Rittenhouse. They were not bystanders they were participants in a movement which they and their families saw as important. They had been trained, apparently, as children not to be bystanders to benefit from the sacrifice of others, but to be participants in bringing about a world where we all enjoyed equality and took responsibility for each other.

The Court system in this country, from the smallest court to the United States Supreme Court, has grown from its beginnings to where it is today, laced with bigotry and put in place to maintain the superiority of the Northern European-ancestry male, especially over the slave.

One need look no further than the Plessy decision at the end of the 19th century which brought into being “separate but equal” as a doctrine we have had to live by and which continued and put in stone the separation of the races with non-‘white’, none Northern-European-ancestry people as those who had to be controlled and kept in an inferior place. When society could no longer keep those inequalities then the Court stepped in to make sure white was also “better than”, “superior to”, and all those other terms by which we have lived almost from day one of this country’s founding.

Brown vs the Board of Education came along and reversed the Plessy decision and we all rejoiced. However, the rejoicing became muted as we saw what that meant institutionally/structurally.

An integrated educational system has never been a reality, in spite of the Brown decision. Real estate interests, amongst others, were employed to keep that from happening. Even today, separate neighborhoods and thus segregated schools are the norm – which is one way we found around the Brown decision. What did happen was the promotion of a group called the Black Muslims or Nation of Islam which promoted the Jews as evil and tried to promote Blacks as “better than.”

The real “better than” people allowed and promoted such groups because they would cause the split between Blacks and Jews that this Northern European-ancestry group had been trying to bring about, but couldn’t because of the long history of such cooperation. They did manage to do a great deal of harm to that relationship and did help to spin a tale, even though not true. It put a lid on real equality for generations to come.

Jews didn’t help because many tried to move into the “better than” group and did everything they could to hide and move ahead without their Jewish identity showing.

The one place it was clear the “better than” people could not lose was the Court system. Lots has been happening in this Court system under our noses and we are just now awakening to the damage done. The “better than” group has been able to structure into its system what is needed to maintain bigotry. The loudest verdict so far is the Rittenhouse verdict, but more is coming. The Republican Party has focused intensely on “stacking” the Court with judges who would maintain a system of inequality where they and those like them would always win and the others would increasingly be denied their rights.

The judge, the defense attorneys, the prosecution all worked together like a well oiled machine – set up from the start of slavery and has just been given an overhaul after the shock of the general voting public having elected an African American president. It is clear the concern before that was not as strong as it is today. Not even looking at the fact that the general population in this country is now about to turn majority-minority. That was true in the south during Reconstruction. There were blacks elected to Congress, to their state legislatures and in all areas of the south. That was not so true of the north. The majority of citizens in the south were black and mostly former slaves.

Violence raises its head quite high today – as it did when there was a threat of African Americans gaining equality. The huge threat in Tulsa-Black Wall Street – brought the ancestors of those who are the white terrorists of today out to kill Blacks who seemed to be gaining equality and in fact, had achieved more than they and/or their families had achieved in terms of education and finance.

Today that is also beginning to be true as you look around at the condition of today’s minorities and so we are attacking and attempting to eliminate generational wealth of minorities, health, property and more of those considered “less than” and we are doing it through a corrupted Court system.

Take a close look at your Courts. Many incorporate a mafia where all else fails. In Massachusetts who was head of the Court system? Whitey Bulger’s brother. The problems we are facing in the Courts in these United States are much larger than we will talk about, write about or attempt to rectify.

Amen?

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and the elderly!

Friday, December 4th, 2020

As many of you know, we have been through some horrifying times over the past few months.

What we learned is that the elderly are at risk in this society and many are being exploited with their assets, freedom, health and more increasingly attacked and stripped away for the benefit of others.

We are adding “Project Old Age” to what the Foundation is doing and hope you will support our efforts. Of all our projects, this one will most assuredly touch your life because we all, finally, move into Old Age.

The project which took a lot of time, money and other resources is coming to an end. The Harriet Tubman Project. We hope you will sign the petition which we are sending to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris telling them about our efforts and all of those who helped and asking them to re-start and bring to completion having the image of Harriet Tubman printed on the next print-run of the $20 bill.

It was, after all President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden who started this effort and brought it almost to completion. When they left office in 2016 they left everything needed for the next printing of the $20 bill to be one with the image of Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson.

That was scheduled to happen, with even the printing plates all done and waiting to be used, at the very beginning of Donald Trump’s time as president. However, Trump canceled that printing and was very clear there would be a woman on the currency one of these days, but it would not be someone like her.

All of that means the effort we put into the Tubman Project will now go into “Project Old Age.”

It has so many paths to take:

  1. We were horrified to discover how easy it is to have the police pick up a citizen of the United States and shove him or her into the psych ward for no reason – except their assets look good and they are moving ahead with civil rights activities that some folks think need to be stopped – or some other personal or civil rights reason.

2. In addition, we discovered that many taxing areas – like cities which tax real estate – made a lot of noise and took credit for helping the elderly stay in their homes. They passed laws making it possible for people over 65, or in some cases over 70 or over 75 to be able to lien their real estate taxes to their property – paying interest, of course.

That has become a joke. The cities have almost no one who has been able to take advantage of that possibility. Why? Because working with banks, the bank refuse to allow such and the city, working with the banks, will obfuscate and confuse to make sure that such a lien process does not happen. Especially if the property is one developers want to buy; or the person is not wanted in the neighborhood for race or other reasons; or fifty other reasons we are uncovering.

3. Elder and Protective Services are also very problematical, being used to destroy, incarcerate, abuse and do much more and worse to the elderly they are supposed to be protecting. People are beginning to call us with problems that are horrifying. Elderly forcibly taken out of their homes for no reason and usually by the police with defective instruments. When they have no protection from these “Protective Services” they are shoved into nursing homes and there – under constraints – end their lives. They just disappear. These days they become a part of the statistic of some 40% of the people dying from COVID-19 are dying in nursing homes. Our experience is that the elderly are placed in nursing homes – even ones already under quarantine, insuring that their lives will be at risk.

We could go on, but we want you to know what this “Project Old Age” is about because it will take in all kinds of problems and sub-projects. It seems to be where society is focusing. Why? Seems to us because with the elderly that is where a very large percentage of assets have always been and because it is easy to get out one’s racism, sexism, and more against families and look “legitimate” in the process. Destroy the assets of the elderly in a new immigrant family and the next generation does not have as great a chance at success as they would if the sacrifices of their parents and grandparents were to come to fruition in their generation helping them through the education and other needs we require as a society for many to move up.

We had no idea what was waiting for all of us out there as we move into “old age”. We are asking that you take another look. Think carefully over our requests and information as all of this unfolds and work with us to rectify and block and eliminate all of these problems so our old age comes peacefully and we can enjoy our last years instead of having to go through what so many have worked hard for and don’t get to experience because others decided to steal, destroy, oppress, and more those reaching the end of their lives.

And lets look at assets with a different definition. When you become elderly – assets include insurance, etc.

JOIN US! It is becoming one of the most meaningful things we have done and we intend to put as many resources into this as possible.

It is a formmula  for newly forming Guardianship Corporations to drain the assets of the elderly.  They were mostly interested in Jews – it was a way to make sure the assets of elderly Jewish families would not go to the next generation – making sure their families would not be able to accomplish as much in life as would be possible if they had what in many cases has amounted to millions of dollars.  

It is bizaar, but it is also life ending prematurely.  We think this is a criminal conspiracy.  They isolate – medicate – liquidate everything you own.

It is an issue where you will find extreme right wing Republicans taking it on as well as extreme left wing Democrats because families of all political persuasions are negatively affected.  Not only are they moving showing their anti-semitism, but they are also moving showing they are not respectors of political parties and have a sharp eye out for minorities – all minorities, African Americans, Latinx, LGBTQ, Muslims, etc..

To go along with the above we are pulling together a “Legal Defense and Education fund for the Elderly.”  We are starting it under Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and will hopefully be able to move it into its own non-profit soonest.  

We are looking for attorneys who want to affiliate with this Elderly Fund and are willing to take cases; do research, etc..  Local Massachusetts attorneys, but also attorneys  across the country.  

I guess I am following family history – my grandfather worked with Thurgood Marshall – Jack Greenberg and others to found the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.  I have pictures from way back in the 1940’s. How different a society we would be if the creation of the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund had not happened.

Hopefully, what we leave in place will be an organization that works with the elderly on these legal issues.  Having people picked up by the police the way Robert was and illegally so because those doing the “incarcerating” have been to Court without the other side present or knowing anything about the “emergency hearing” making sure the case was set in place before anyone on the other side even knew there was a case. The elderly are defeated from day one and don’t know that because the papers so filed are either impounded or under seal.  A couple cases we found the people had no idea how what happened to them got started and defended against the wrong thing because they were led to believe something which was not true. We found motions from attorneys like the one filed in Roberts name as though Robert was filing it when Robert knew nothing about the motion, did not know there was anything in court about him, had not been notified that the Court had appointed an attorney to represent him. How could that be attorney representation when no one knew on Robert Bennett’s side about such an appointment and the person appointed and the Court appointment came from Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – so they then had attorneys representing them on both sides of the issue.

The state is implicated because the claim of “indigent” opens the state pocket books so they can be picked to be able to facilitate what we strongly believe and everything we find backs up our belief that this is a “criminal conspiracy.”

The police were and usually are involved on the wrong side of these issues. In Robert’s case they forced him out of his home and into a psych ward with a defective instrument. One signed by a psychiatrist testifying to the fact that she had never met Robert, knew nothing about him, had never examined him, had never been to his home which she described as “unsafe” and yet out of the blue and violating all of the rules and regulations of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services she signed out a Section 12 to have him picked up by the police.

The proof of the defectiveness of the instrument the police were given and used is proven by the fact that the hospital sent Robert home with no problems found, no reason for him to have been forced into the psych ward in the first place. That kind of proof after the fact followed through in everything that happened to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett and what happened to him turns out to be a pattern used to do the same thing to other elderly people who have something the people sending out the police want and which they move to get through these defective legal means. And on from bad to worse.

So far, we have been blessed with many people cooperating and working with us. We owe a huge thank you and gratitude to the person who put legal papers through our mail slot which showed us what was really happening with Robert and we were able to break that case and now have what we need to file a substantial law suit against all involved.  

Work with us – let us know the problems – send attorneys to affiliate with this new Legal and Educational Fund for the Elderly.

Marceline Donaldson, president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

617 497 9166

Real Estate Taxes/Collusion/Graft

Thursday, August 29th, 2019

by: Marceline Donaldson

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are willing to take part in an obvious rip-off of others with those “others” including themselves and they do this for nothing – mostly not even realizing the rip-off. How many “good” people are willing to ‘go along to get along’ turning their backs to the suffering of others caused by their ‘head in the sand’ attitude towards life.

Real estate taxes is one of those areas. A collusion between the banks and the government entity levying the taxes.

Take a close, clear look at what that is all about.

Many government entities, which have decided to charge real estate taxes to those within their boundaries join the corporate and financial mafia which is totally ripping off the average citizen, daily, and these government entities contribute their share in that kind of enterprise. They join in making the banks overfed, arrogant and with an attitude that the banks rule.

How does that happen?The right to collect real estate taxes is declared and the reasons and areas which will benefit are also outlined. Those having to pay the taxes are in general agreement because they see the benefit to themselves and their generations to come.

And then things go off the rail. What enters is graft, theft, rip-offs, greed, power and much more.

How could something which started off as a benefit become such a tool to the grifters and others who insert themselves into the process? Think about who benefits before the real estate taxes you pay reach their destination. Very few people pay their real estate taxes to their government entity. Their taxes are collected by the banks. When they sign for the mortgage they are given a story which is clearly not true as to why the bank should pay the taxes. They are convinced that is the best way and their mortgage papers have a clause they have to sign – even under duress or they don’t get the mortgage – that the bank can take over paying their real estate taxes at any point the bank decides. That means many who start off paying their taxes directly to the government entity, in a short time receive notice from the bank that their mortgage amount is increased by the amount of real estate taxes and it must be paid at the same time their mortgage is due.

Real Estate Taxes have made the banks of America fat, overly arrogant, feeds them for free so they can do their thing in other areas ignoring their customers and much, much more. It is free money for six months. Money the banks knows will come in on a certain day and will remain for the next six months. The banks know that will continue for the life of the mortgage, which in some cases is 30 years. Billions and Billions of dollars free – from John and Jane Q. Public.

The public could put that money monthly into a savings account if they so decided and receive interest payments at the retail market rate. They could buy bonds which come due a few days before their real estate taxes and receive appreciation and interest. They could do a number of things with their own money and earn for themselves instead of giving that money to the bank to be held – for free. The banks are not charity organizations to whom you contribute because of the good humanitarian work they do.

Think of what a bank can do and is doing and has done around real estate taxes. The billions and billions they collect and use to up their bottom line comes from the hard earned money of John and Jane Q. Public who makes the money by hard work and gets zero return on his or her dollars because the bank’s evil geniuses have figured out how to set in place such a system and make it palatable to the general public. It is normal – is what we’ve heard. Everybody has to pay their taxes to the bank – we’ve also heard. And how does that make it right – we are asking?

Today you are required or convinced by the bank’s smooth talk to make mortgage payments to the bank which include your real estate taxes. The bank’s requirement is that you make these tax payments to them six months in advance. The bank holds that money – can use it anyway they choose – and for six months they have money in the billions on which they don’t pay anything to the people whose money they are holding. Banks have billions of dollars they can use – free – to do whatever they choose and they don’t have to answer to anyone for the money nor pay interest nor anything else on those real estate taxes which they hold for fully six months.

If you have a 30 year mortgage, the bank knows that for the next 30 years they have your money to use for free for six months ongoing for the next 30 years.

And then come the games.

Foreclosure and default are very lucrative for banks. If you pay your mortgage plus interest in full and do not pay your real estate taxes to the bank you are found in default for money owed to no one. but which the bank has declared a part of the repayment of your mortgage and they hold that you are in default or foreclosure because the real estate taxes you do not owe have not been paid.

We have been contacted by people who are in default on their mortgage and some who are in foreclosure. Those in default have had massive fees added to the mortgage amounts in spite of the fact that their mortgages were paid in full and on time. For three months they did not include the real estate taxes because they figured out the game the banks were playing and refused to go along. They contacted the bank and said they were going to pay their real estate taxes directly to the government entity and the bank said no. That is not possible. If you don’t pay directly to us and if you don’t pay six months in advance of when the amount is due you will be held in default after three months of not making those real estate tax payments to the bank.

They have tried to send money each month to the government entity – which was fine, but because it was not in the bank, they were found in default by the bank when, in fact, there were no monies due because the government entity had been paid.

So, in spite of their mortgage having been paid in full and on time – and their real estate taxes having been paid six months in advance of their being due, but directly to the government entity instead of to the bank, the bank put them into default and a couple such people we knew about into foreclosure for not paying monies they didn’t owe. The problem was resolved, but with the bank keeping the many fees charged because the mortgage had been declared in default and with the other family, the fees kept because the mortgage was in foreclosure.

The bank, knowing the real estate taxes were paid in full ignored that and paid the government entity the real estate taxes in full. In another case, the bank overpaid the taxes because they needed the extra few thousand dollars they overpaid to throw the family into default on their mortgage. In another case, the bank paid other bills, which they had no right to pay, but which they did anyway causing the family untold problems to work through and all of that with attorneys – causing the family to expend even more money. Is that fear and intimidation?

One such person had an agreement with their bank that they would pay their own real estate taxes. After several months of going along with that, the bank notified the person that their real estate taxes needed to be escrowed in addition to paying the mortgage. They refused because they had a different agreement going into the mortgage – the mortgage was paid on time and the real estate taxes also. The family put real estate tax monies into bonds which matured in six month increments so they could use that money to pay the government entity. That didn’t matter, the bank wanted the money to use for its own purposes, for free and demanded that their mortgage holders pay their real estate taxes directly to the bank or face foreclosure.

Did you know the bank can attempt to foreclose on your property even if your mortgage plus interest is paid before its due date and in full?

Into this money game – enter the government entity collecting the real estate taxes. They have several games they play in collusion with the banks.

  1. They go along with the banks demanding that the real estate taxes be paid six months in advance and the money held by the bank – without recompense to the mortgage holder. And, on one account we saw where the mortgage holder paid an average of $5,000 to the city for real estate taxes over six months, that mortgage holder’s bank was one of the more generous banks paying them $.31 interest on their $5,000 for six months.
  2. Enter the elderly. Many government entities have passed laws which say those over 65 – although some say those over 75 – may defer their taxes on their property until either they die or sell the house. The interest on such ranges from 3% to about 7% depending upon the amount of interest so stipulated by the particular government entity.
  3. Enter the games against the elderly. Some government entities on their admin side don’t want that, but it was passed anyway. So the admins and their managements have found a way to by-pass this. They make sure to discombobulate, to dissemble, to refuse to accept the applications from the elderly for such deferrals. Many we have encountered are very good at this pushing away and not accepting applications yet claiming the applications were not complete, not offered, not submitted, etc.
  4. If that doesn’t work and the elderly person is particularly good at dealing with bureaucracies what then comes into play is the collusion between the banks and the government entities. The government agrees that the application is complete, good, passed on positively and the elderly person sends it to their bank holding their mortgage and the bank refuses to honor the deferral.

5. Given the fact that the bank should not be able to dishonor such an application, especially if the equity is substantial enough to insure the taxes will be paid upon the person’s death or sale of the property – the bank refuses to accept the deferral and does not have to give a reason. Just a blanket refusal. We call that bank-greed and elder-abuse.

6. We call it bank-greed because we have tracked down a few such instances and have found that there will be people in the bank with their eyes on a particular property where the elderly owners are going through this process and they want to buy the house, but not at the retail price which everyone else has to pay. With machinations, the elderly person is, in effect, swindled out of their property and the city or bank person goes away happily owning a new piece of property or have passed it on to someone who gives them a kick back.

7. The rub from all of this is that the elderly person will generally wind up without their property living in subsidized elderly housing and the person paying that bill is John Q. Public who was swindled by the banks and the government entities in the first place in this real estate tax dealing. So that swindle comes around again and payment is extracted again from the tax paying public.

There is a whole lot more to this than the above and we encourage you to send us information from your experiences. We will continue to write about it in installments so that you can see how banks, taxes, mortgages, government entities work hand and glove in ways we feel are illegal, but they feel as their right against those working hard to put bread on their tables and keep their heads above water let alone attempting to do anything more that they deserve because of their hard work over a lifetime.

________________________________________________

IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

What follows are some of the ways you can support our work:

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

*This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*

This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.

Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog

into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.

Project 4 – Boycott the Twenty Dollar ($20) bill

You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.

_________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net





Homelessness – What Causes It?

Friday, January 4th, 2019

We have been studying this for years.  I can remember a time when there didn’t seem to be homelessness.  At least it was so carefully hidden most of us were not aware of anything except the romantic tale of the hobo who couldn’t live in a house – did not want to be closed in, but spent his life riding the freight trains from one place to another.  Little did we know that was real, except for the part about the hobo not wanting to live in a house and wanting to spend his life riding freight trains, cooking over fires he made from whatever he could gather that would burn, freezing to death along the railroad tracks, etc.  He was pictured in movies and other media as a happy camper living this life. There was usually happy music in the background when talking about such.

That was and is an extremely painful way to live and not one lived that way by choice.  What was also carefully hidden from John and Jane Q. Public was the fact that the hobo was the hobo he and some were the hobo she.    

I have always asked – why would a seemingly wealthy society allow such within its borders?  I have no answer.

Homelessness is caused by banks.  Oh, Wow!  I can hear the screams, objections and denials.  You can hem and haw.  You can object and protest.  When you sit down, clear your head and do the work and the investigation you will discover HOMELESSNESS IS INDEED CAUSED BY BANKS.

Within the bank, accountants and others sit and get paid to figure out ways banks can make more money at the expense of the middle class.  Sometimes banks hire consultants – usually outside accountants to do the same thing. “How can we charge for  services we don’t render.  How can we increase what we make on services we do render.”

Well lets take this one profit making pocket at a time.   What is the number one way banks cause homelessness?  House foreclosures.  How does that make so much money for banks?  

The fastest way banks cause homelessness and increase their profits exponentially in the process is through their ability to collect the real estate taxes (RET) levied on John and Jane Q. Public, by the government.  

Cities and other governmental entities are supposed to levy and collect their own real estate taxes.  In fact, that has been turned over to banks to do and it is done by banks in such a way that hundreds of billions of dollars flow into banks from this function.  Bank charges to city entities; fees of all kind levied on home owners for many reasons, etc. It is one of the reasons we have such huge banks and why it is difficult to impossible for the smaller banks to grow at the rapid rate seen in the larger banks.  

If you take out a mortgage with a bank – you most likely have to agree to paying your real estate taxes directly to them instead of to the city or other governmental entity.  Those RET are kept within the bank for at least six months doing nothing except making money and being used by the bank.  That is an amount of money the bank can “bank” on receiving and when and know it will be received with regularity and they know how long it will be in the bank.   From that they can plan how to use that money to increase their profits exponentially because you can’t come to withdraw any of that money, it has to stay put for the requisite period of time and when it has to be turned over it will have been a work horse for the time it stayed.  But – you should say – that money should be a work horse for the governmental entity to which the real estate taxes are owed.  

Look at how much better that money would work for you and me instead of being used to work against you and me keeping us poor or with a glass money ceiling over our heads. How did this happen?

This is one answer to the question – “How did banks grow so big!”  How come they have so much money!  Why are they so arrogant, independent, can be ugly to their own customers and still grow and stay in business. How can they throw so much money around (not the least of which is throwing it around political campaigns to keep the politicians beholden to them). This is one of the ways banks have grown so very large and are awash in hundreds of billions of dollars and it is a biggie.  It is also one of the ways banks promote foreclosure. – It is one of the ways they become the largest promoter of homelessness in this society.

 Homelessness is not about mental institutions which put its patients out on the street for lack of money to sustain, treat and cure them where possible? That is the marketing/advertising campaigns that are out there to mislead us all.  NO! Susie.  It is not.  That is and was a smoke screen.  Homelessness can be traced directly back to banks as its beginnings and root cause.  And, banks are a causer of homelessness dates back beyond the founding of these United States.  Banks have had this role for eons of time.

There is no reason for banks to collect real estate taxes on houses.  The taxes have work to do taking care of different needs of the people who pay the taxes.  If your real estate taxes must sit for six months in a bank – having been paid some six months before they are due so the bank can have that bit of huge money inflow to help it grow ‘big time’, that is a ‘big time’ problem for the people for whom those funds should be working.

The money paid to banks far in advance of when the city says they are due should actually be working to gain more income for you or for the city – if indeed it is not obscene and a violation of your rights to make such a requirement.  In fact, almost all of the real estate monies are collected in this country by banks; sit in the bank working very hard for the bank; and earning untold billions to help grow that banks strength and reach into the community.

Many games are played around real estate taxes and banks.  We, the tax payer,  assumes the present system is the way it should be and we go along with the program – much to our detriment.  We make that assumption because we don’t think of ourselves and our rights. We accept what is, if it is dressed up in Patrician clothes and exhibits the mores of a Patrician class.

Banks collect RET (Real Estate Taxes) on a monthly basis from people who acquire mortgages from them.  The people must then repay the mortgage, usually monthly,  along with 1/12 of that years real estate taxes each and every month.  The bank keeps that money and uses it because real estate taxes are usually only paid by the bank to the city every six months.  The average mortgage holder much pay their real estate taxes monthly and six months in advance of their being due. 

This is an inviolable thing.  No one questions it – and it goes so unquestioned that banks can foreclose and they do foreclose on homes and families even if the mortgage is paid in full each month.  If the real estate taxes are not paid six months in advance the foreclosure happens – not by the city because it does not see taxes owed by citizens and does not foreclose if a citizen misses one six month period of paying taxes, but the bank does this on a regular basis.  Claiming a person is behind in their mortgage even though that is not true and even though the taxes – which they are behind in paying – are taxes, amounts of money, not due for another month or two.

To put that in its proper context. Banks make substantial sums of money on funds that stay in the bank overnight. And they maximize that in every way possible. These are funds that stay in the bank for six months, definite, not able to be withdrawn, tied up in the bank no matter what. Imagine the money made on that. The bank pays a very small amount of “interest” to the mortgage holder on their “escrowed real estate taxes” – minuscule to the amount it is making on those funds.

When that happens – add a little push to get the family headed into financial problems which results in the house being foreclosed, and banks have been known to do this frequently.  Add a minority to whom the bank has given a mortgage; add a minority who has somehow skipped past the banks red-lining policy; add to that a property which has a very small mortgage compared to the large equity position of the property owner – no matter the race, color, class, ethnic origin, religion of the property owner and, in a bank with lousy ethics which is or is bordering on becoming a criminal enterprise, another game usually moves hand in glove with the real estate taxes game.

Banks have been known to target families where there is a large gap between the value of the house and the balance of the mortgage.  When a person has a small mortgage and a large equity position they are sitting ducks for a bank to salivate over future profits.

That was out of control during the last recession and banks were so overcome running where their greed pushed them that our banking system almost collapsed.  Their greed overcame their ability to function any other way.  Many bankers and realtors became wealthy with such a scheme – one amongst many.  Many individuals faced poverty, bankruptcy, homelessness – especially homelessness.

 More on this story in another blog.  Maybe even a few real life stories!

__________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – Wells Fargo Boycott

__________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com


Bettina's Lifestyle Commnity!

Join us!

Bettina’s Lifestyle Community

Making a difference in this very difficult and changeable world.

Bettina's Lifestyle Commnity!

Join us!