Thursday, May 21, 2015

No. 149 – Hats, Friendship, and Looking Back


by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

In 2002 I had not yet met Mario – and he had not run into the enormous problem created intentionally by the mortgage industry to expedite foreclosures, using the housing market to create derivatives which could then be monetized, becoming an investment. Mario, whose training is in dress design of all kinds, solved his own problem and has helped thousands of other people keep their homes. He is that kind of guy, warm, compassionate, and determined.

Attorneys pay him to update them on foreclosures and how new case law is changing the outcome for many. Mario became obsessive on the subject and devoured law books when he realized how people were being harmed. Along with telling me about his work for people facing foreclosure Marion also mentioned to me in an off-handed way, he makes hats.

While I know any number of people who are struggling financially I only knew one other person with a passion for hats. Naturally, I introduced them. Tonight we chatted for nearly an hour tonight via conference call. Mario and Maggie got along like gang-busters.

Maggie once owned a hat shop and loved being a milliner. She is also in foreclosure herself. So, it was a very fertile conversation, so to speak. They are now planning a website to sell hats and help people facing foreclosure. Mario has shown many people how to handle their own cases. Good things.

Planning out deceptive behavior which takes people's homes should be a crime. Deceptive behavior is a problem in other instances as well.

I had just gotten around to reading “Rove Exposed,” by James Moore and Wayne Slater, published in 2006. But the story about Rove that arrested my interest was the sneak way he orchestrated the sale of invading Iraq. When it happened it was easy to forget the details, but in the book, there they were, with dates and who said what, documented and easy to understand.

But Slater and Moore left out the best part of the story. After the sales job done to persuade Americans Saddam had weapons of mass destruction in November, 2002 he contacted the Bush White House and offered to leave Iraq – if they just paid him. For me, the time line in “Rove Exposed” explained why Rove was so anxious to make sure Saddam did not go anywhere. And Saddam could never speak out.

Imagine that.

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