Old Joe's daughter was also listening, and when she heard her father say he had no job and no source of income, she couldn't help but wipe away a tear.
Here again, the cultural differences between the East and the West emerged.
For Eastern women, having a job and achieving financial independence are mainstream values.
But things are different in the West. There are so many housewives here! It's unimaginable in the East!
Leaving aside the issue of happy education, even women with higher education, even those who graduated from prestigious universities, choose to marry and then return home to be housewives.
Men earn money to support the family, while women manage the household and take care of the children. It seems to be a matter of course here.
Now, this eighty-year-old man is out robbing, while a middle-aged woman with all her limbs and no illness stays at home, doing laundry and taking care of the children. This is the common situation here, and Bella has no right to blame either party.
She wasn't going to ramble on about women's rights; that would take things too far. She consoled Old Joe.
"Calm down. Anger won't solve the problem. We can take legal action. I'll consult a lawyer later about the pension. Let's talk about the financial product that Bank of the West forced you to buy."
The old man was also very interested in this topic. He began to talk non-stop about how the bank staff had used sweet talk to trick him into buying a financial product, and then not only did he lose all his principal, but he even had to use his house to pay off the debt.
The old man's tears were sore, and Bella felt a little uncomfortable.
That steel mill and Stark Industries were just playing dirty, holding back on your pension, dragging it out bit by bit.
The bank was a complete wreck, using a lot of technical jargon to confuse the old man and, while he was confused, persuaded him to buy a financial product.
People here don't save. Thirty percent of people don't even have a thousand dollars in savings. The old man's entire family depends on his pension, so what savings can he possibly have?
Listening to the other party's exaggerated claims of no risk, high returns, high-quality projects, and national policy support, an eighty-year-old man, so out of touch with the times, could he have any discernment?
Old Joe and many of his coworkers mortgaged their homes to buy financial products that even bank employees wouldn't buy themselves.
Bella and Natasha sighed as they left Old Joe's house and went to the home of eighty-five-year-old Willy. No one was home, and upon asking, they learned that the old man had been hospitalized for kidney failure and was now on a ventilator.
The remaining eighty-one-year-old, Yar, was quite talkative, but his girlfriend pressed him so hard that he left after talking to them for ten minutes.
"Eighty-one, still able to find a girlfriend?!"
Bella was shocked to see the silver-haired woman, who looked like she was in her seventies, sweetly holding the hand of the eighty-one-year-old Yar.
Natasha held up three fingers, looking surprised. "What's the big deal? Old Yar has claimed on many occasions that he has sex with his girlfriend three times every morning!"
Bella took another closer look at Yar. He could barely walk properly. It took him a long time to walk a dozen meters, taking small steps, shuffling forward a little bit, his legs barely moving. How can a body like that do it three times a morning? I don't really understand you American elders!
"You are such kind people!"
"May God bless you."
"Good children, there are so few kind-hearted people like you these days!"
Bella and Natasha again asked seven or eight other elderly people with similar experiences. After they expressed their willingness to help the elderly seek justice, they received a lot of praise.
These things were useless to Natasha, merely amusing her. But they were incredibly useful to Bella!
The elders' praise was genuine, instantly boosting her enthusiasm.
Seeing the praise, she immediately adjusted her plans.
That evening, the two of them deliberately provoked a fight with two other groups of high school students also conducting social research.
Natasha's claim of "some knowledge" of karate was plausible. While still at an average level, she possessed strength, agility, and an incredible understanding of combat techniques. With Bella's help, they easily "persuaded" the students. By the time
they finished their first day of social research, they had thirteen followers.
Demonstrations and prosecutions are the three main tools of social action in this era.
Natasha volunteered to organize the demonstrations, while Bella, leveraging her limited connections from the previous plane crash, attempted to pursue legal action to secure a future for the steel mill workers.
Even the most stubborn Texan would admit that New Yorkers are litigious. The lawyers hired for the flight crash were from New York.
Bella called the law firm currently handling the Flight 180 crash. Even after realizing she couldn't afford the legal fees, they enthusiastically recommended a lawyer.
Upon meeting the lawyer, Jerry Hogarth, Bella felt a bit ripped off.
The lawyer looked incredibly young, with dark hair, a dress, and high heels. She was meticulously dressed, but judging by her features, she looked only a few years older than Bella.
She had no personal assistant, and even her business card stated simply "attorney," not "partner," suggesting she was a recent graduate.
Jerry Hogarth had accepted the case against the steel mill and Stark Industries for withholding pension payments, but he was troubled by the elderly who had lost their fortunes through financial products.
"Ms. Swan, I understand your intentions, but from a legal perspective, buying financial products carries risks, and there's nothing illegal about this."
Bella wasn't a law student, and since laws vary from state to state, she had no idea what was illegal.
"Isn't this a case of fraud?" she asked.
Jerry Hogarth shook her head and chuckled. If anyone else had asked her this question, she would have just brushed it off, but seeing Bella's expression, she patiently and meticulously explained the difference.
"If the signatory is sane, not coerced, concealed, or deceived, then the investment agreement signed in this situation is legally sound. Investments carry risks. I'm personally sorry that the elderly people you mentioned will have their homes taken away by the bank, but as a lawyer, I don't recommend expending significant effort on this."
Bella scratched her head. The lawyer had made her point clearly, and she wasn't one to ignore advice.
Her original intention was to block the elderly from buying financial products. At their age, how could they manage their finances? But financial management was the mainstream here, and she couldn't think of any rebuttal.
"Okay, then. Let's focus on the pension payments first. How do we do that?"
Jerry Hogarth thought for a moment. "Do you know about class action? Find as many victims as possible and pursue the class action route."
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(End of Chapter)