I wonder how many accounts I have at Wells Fargo. I've never banked there, but that hasn't stopped them in other cases. As a bank, Wells Fargo can buy my credit bureau files and obtain all my personal information for a pittance. Yours, too.
I know they've bought my files, because they have solicited my business. Did they buy your files, too?
Let's just assume for a moment that they did. They sent us both a solicitation, and when we didn't respond they sent another, then another, and another. Eventually (several years in my case), they stopped sending offers. Was it because they gave up on us? Or was it because they just went ahead an opened an account for both of us?
They have all the necessary information. They're a bank – nobody's going to question them! Neither one of us has much of a balance, because we never gave them any money. Since we didn't earn interest, there was nothing to report to the IRS. Outside of Wells Fargo, our accounts didn't exist.
Or did they? Banks almost always make up complex rules about how they calculate interest on customer balances. It's kind of like casinos: In the end, the "house" always wins. Maybe the balance has to be in the account for a certain number of days each month before it is "counted" in interest calculations. Maybe it has to be there for six months. Maybe that particular account didn't pay interest. There are always ways the "house" can win.
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That doesn't mean, however, that we didn't have a balance for a few days during one particular month. Maybe we had a balance for a few days every few months. Then maybe that balance disappeared again – or maybe that balance went somewhere else.
Or maybe I had a balance for only a few hours one day. Maybe you had a balance for almost the whole day. Maybe those balances that we had for only that short time – a few minutes – a few hours, maybe those balances were fairly hefty.
Here's an interesting news story about how the Clinton Foundation moved money around offshore through both nonprofit and for-profit entities. Many of them were set up by the Panama law firm that hid billions for dictators and politicians.
When you add up the various spinoffs of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea nonprofit and for-profit entities floating around offshore, it quickly becomes mind-boggling.
By now practically everyone's personal information has been hacked and sold on the black market numerous times. Most of the hackers just want to make a few bucks when they sell the info. But we don't know what the buyers want to do with it, do we?
One of the biggest and most detailed (and therefore destructive) hacking jobs was on the federal government's human resources department, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). NBC reports that some 21.5 million people have been notified that their personnel files were stolen, including classified background investigations. After that, there's not much the hacker doesn't know about you. The person with that information could actually become you.
Kind of makes one wonder, what if that hacked information was bought by a law firm somewhere; maybe one that opened up offshore nonprofit and for profit business entities that occasionally – sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours, maybe even a few days – had large bank balances that ballooned and then shrunk back to zero when the money that had mysteriously arrived there was sent off somewhere else?
"War is Hell," those who have been there will tell you. It's also not cheap. Global disruption on a grand scale costs a lot of money. Somebody has to pay.
Federal Reserve and other central bank "funny money" goes only so far in financing a global disruption. Central bank funny money needs a legitimate outlet before it can become useful. It has to be moved where it is needed.
Perhaps more of us than we imagine have unwittingly helped move this money around the globe. After all, not every terrorist nation can have pallets of cash delivered by the planeload to their doorstep by the U.S. president.
What about Congress? Well, if they are serious about investigating Wells Fargo and the greatest train robbery in the history of the world, they will demand and receive the entire account history of every Wells Fargo account created since the phantom account creation drive began in 2011. Get the backup data center tapes as well, and subpoena the IT guys, say, from 2010 onward. They are the ones who ultimately know.
Media wishing to interview Craige McMillan, please contact [email protected].
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