Quote:
Originally Posted by Sage Griot
Wow!
Please don't take this the wrong way, Re-f.......nothing in your post about MDH business practices is the least bit surprising. I'm pretty sure most of us had strong intuitions about these practices and much more, though you do offer first hand perspective, which I appreciate. It's not a crime to be a lousy business manager except when you use OPM and deceive your investors while doing it. I stand by the comments in my last post. Your macro-economic comments are way, way beyond the MDH concern, IMO.
Just one question........I am not familiar with the term "unbanked individual"...could you explain?
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Three comments coming. And I promise not to write anymore today even if I am doing it simply for the "first hand perspective" that some have appreciated.
Unbanked Individuals are perhaps one of the lowest common denominator of many local economies and are a group of people that the Federal Reserve and banking industries are very concerned about tapping. Unbanked people are usually minority groups, immigrants, welfare recipients and other minimum wage earners and perhaps college students and even people who travel outside their local neighborhood for work. Google "unbanked" and see the government concern.
When a company preys upon and seduces LCD's of society, that is where I disagree with Sage comments about "being lousy business manager not a crime" because I believe the intent to create the bad business(es) makes it actionable by concerned citizens. I believe the things that make this whole investor problem a scam in the first place is the intent to defraud. And devising plans to create illegitimate companies.
If I go to a job fair or some event like for example, Washington Real Estate Investors association (Washington REIA meets 2nd and 4th Monday in Rockville) or special interest event like "Stone Soul Picnic" and people from a company like an MDH are coming to meetings, setting up tables, advertising for employees or to attract investors or advertise motivated sellers, or if I answer a pre-foreclosure consulting sign because I am down on my luck and in financial hardship, the intent of these "lousy managers" (with CEO titles etc.) should be actionable.
I'm not looking for a perfect world. I know there is no such thing as a fair flat market place.
But human nature of people in general, says, "with limited time and resources, people will gravitate toward and ultimately choose the one or the company on top."
I believe, like you Sage, that the AG's and the government will not aggressively prosecute and that they just want the "business" to cease. But Andy Williams is a repeat offender. If what was reported in post about Dr. Bland testimony is true, He's a repeat offender. And if they are only slapped on wrist, they'll show up again and again. And there is really no one available to champion the "unbanked" or other unsophisticated consumer, if the "Lousy Managers" are not accountable for their intent. And there are people starting and running businesses that legitimately need or want their competition and their benchmarking to not include the "Lousy Intent."
True that macro-economics has no place here, but when it's micro-economics it does. My "oil example" in last post affects everyone who drives or uses heat in this country.
This country is about administrating the Rule of Law and interpreting the Spirit of Law INSTEAD of the everchanging desire of private interest. When lousy managers are allowed free run of our industries, it is no wonder that the companies who want to do it right or better are sending their tech support or manufacturing to other countries.
American's have a lot of issues as well as being the greatest country to live in. The reason it is that is because we are allowed to make things better when we see problems. The ERISA system is failing, and the Banking system that changes credit card interest rates on one card because you make a late payment somewhere else and they are "Big Brother watching" ...and all these people are affected when MDH sells an POSCafe package ATM with fees for use -- to get the highest return from the lowest common denominator user for the profit margin of the investor shareholder and host location vendor.
all that affects everyone every day in crappy mortgages, and therefore interest rates, sub-prime unchecked lenders, higher prices everywhere and insurance and going to the convenience store to cash your check while being blasted and distracted with ads for other crappy products from a big plasma screen.
We live in an "Attention Getting Age" right now -- people spend their money and their time according to who gets their attention and holds onto it. Information Age is still valid descriptor but people are spending money where attention is, not getting information.
I'm in sales and marketing and I consult business development. People spend money and time according to where their attention is and with the pursuit of internet business and compartmentalized marketing and shopping (look at Ebay or People Magazine or American Idol) and again I will say that without time and resources or education, people choose businesses, for better or worse, according to who has their attention.
If MDH is getting attention from investors and even whole cultural groups (like being a minority owned business and having mostly minority clients and end users and rallying "civil rights support" etc.), and they are excellent fund raisers and charismatic repeat offenders, it affects everyone who tries to use the same or different exploited resources in these industries and cultures.
and people are driven to distraction on a very personal micro-economic level by what we are watching and listening to and participating in everyday. I believe that the "lousy, bad business" is criminal when you can find intent.
So that is why I closed last comment with the "teaching pigs to sing" thing. Sure it sounds like macro and bigger than we are and just a minor irritation and I agree that gov probably won't do much here. But you can't say that it doesn't affect other areas and that poor planning or lousy management may just be a necessary evil to contend with if conducting real business. Why should a person like me have to put up with threats and harassment and unpaid collection invoices because I spent several months thinking I could and should educate these pigs to sing when I hadn't surmized "lousy manager" from the get go?
18 months ago, MDH didn't have the pig suit on again yet, they were not prosecuted last time around and I checked out Real Estate businesses for info about them, not Bankcard Group that was shut down. That still makes it my fault and my responsibility and I need to learn lesson here. I am not being disrespectful of my choices and denying my vulnerability or suggesting that I have to know all things about everyone to do business.
Anybody read or see The Firm by John Grisham? I'm no Tom Cruise and I am not bright enough or resourced enough to get MDH on more hidden offenses like perhaps mail fraud or IRS evasion or whatever like main character did in his "scam investigation."
I can just mention trips to Caymen Islands and convertible corvettes and many LLC's created with no business plan in the same sentence that I discuss recent articles in USA today by Ken McVoy about "Inc.-ing" and moving $$ overseas easily with all the loopholes in American Business Practices. Not accusing of course but please follow the money, People.
But I think that bad business and lousy managers and companies with intent to do harm stretching across several industries that I work in and in neighborhoods I live in deserve to be audited and held accountable for the lousiness. And I believe that when the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness is compromised in a person's small business and home by threats, harassment, tortuous interference and stolen property and when unenforceable verbal and paper contracts are not held accountable, I THINK WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT BESIDES BLOG, but I don't know what that should be.
Intent should count. And I think the AG's should look for that, and follow the money and perhaps sic the IRS and FTC on them as well as SEC. The BBB doesn't cut it when a company is setting up new names every five minutes and what other resource does a regular person have to call up and check before they buy a home with a Real Estate Agent and good credit?
But since I can almost certainly predict, like most people here reading, the Gov may not DO MUCH ELSE HERE and the private businesses obviously won't because I can't do this alone and investors won't cry foul until they are actually screwed and even then, they will get told by attorneys that they have unenforceable "contracts" so don't bother and just cut your losses, lesson hopefully learned. BS
I think it is our civic responsibility to pursue tortuous interference and breaches of trust and theft and other insidious forms of daily attention torture from people that start and maintain lousy businesses in our micro-neighborhoods. I think it is messy when dealing with con-artists and never cut and dry or quick.
This is why I chose "re-founding" in my name. The wisdom of crowds and the 1500 or more direct families involved with this MDH mess could actually make a difference and the government AG's could make a difference and yet they probably won't because I'm just one jaded victim sprawling out on the comfortable, grassy, sunny blogosphere because I can't personally do much else right now. Or at least I have no advice or suggestion about what to do or where to go while the AG takes their time to slap a wrist that will re-animate in a couple of years anyway, still in my neighborhood.
But maybe, just maybe, the court of public opinion will get loud enough to do some serious good.
I forgot in last post to mention the IRS. Who gets credit for the mortgage interest paid on buyers house that they are having mortgage paid by someone else? And if you loan money to company, then receive paycheck out of that pile of money because you are actually employed and investing and maybe your FICA is being paid for a while, you ultimately pay your own income tax on the money you loaned?? What??
Ask about the 1099's that are being sent out. Ask about the lease option agreements that are signed. Ask where the rental incomes go when one family owns two or three houses in the program because they just have good credit, not because they are earning the money made. follow the money on this bad business. That "good credit score" that the bank actually loaned out on, was in-part actually manufactured and improved individually by the poor loans that the banks are crying foul on. Any Mortgage Broker Association oversight available here?
I agree "this scam" is not about the mortgages totally even though that is the first place people are blogging and addressing journalists in the papers, but following the electronic money everchanging hands is a good place to start.
Anyway, happy sunday.
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