Terry Graham -- First Data/Western Union: Giant Sucking Sounds & Stakeholders

By Terry Graham
May 2, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

Every corporation nurtures its �stakeholders� -- definable groups, each with a vested interest in its success. Internal stakeholders -- directors, officers, and employees, as well as external stakeholders such as shareholders, contractors, agents, customers, and prospects -- represent important niche markets that are carefully cultivated to ensure prosperity.

A recognized leader in open-borders advocacy, First Data Corporation and its subsidiary, Western Union, are no different. Most First Data/Western Union (FDWU) stakeholders have profited from the Giant Sucking Sound emanating from its Colorado headquarters as valued customers -- typically immigrants-- wire billions of dollars �home.�

According to a March 2004 article in Denver�s Westword newspaper, First Data generated more than $10 billion in 2004, with more than $1 billion in profit from Western Union alone.

To expand it immigrant customer base, FDWU has spent at least $15 million promoting massive third-world immigration into the US. In March 2004, FDWU created a $10 million �Empowerment Fund� -- whose Advisory Panel includes ethnic hustlers like Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza (�The Race�). The fund supports Latino and pro-immigration causes. Raul & other razistas allocated $800,000 for a Denver pilot program to support and increase the number of �Latino� [only] business owners via the local Hispanic Chamber. FDWU also has spent $5.5 million in �charitable� donations as part of settling class-action lawsuits brought by pro-Mexico agitators charging that the company failed to disclose �unreasonably high commissions� for money transfers to Mexico.

Mexican and other foreign customer stakeholders living in the US, often illegally, mean big bucks for FDWU stakeholders. In a Business 2.0 Magazine article �Give Me Your Tired, Your Hungry, Your Cash ... " (9/15/04), Western Union�s CEO Christina Gold admits that "Our center is the receive side... because, for our customer, 'home' is not the US."

But the US is where the money is...or was!

First Data�s CEO Charles Fote focuses on money too, saying that �...it's important to note that [the Latino-only business fund] is not about ethnicity or skin color. This initiative is about green - money - and empowering people to improve their lives and our economy."

Whose lives....whose economy?

No doubt, FDWU top stakeholders� personal economy improves as they loot America. In 2003, Fote reportedly earned $1.75 million, Gold, $750,000.

Financial analysts assure First Data�s myopic US investor stakeholders that their stock is a �good pick,� secured by dollars siphoned off of increasing, outbound money transfers. The corporation�s newly acquired STAR ATM network pilfers dollars faster, and more profitably. These dollars are lost forever to the US economy. Planned expansions into India and China should boost the booty.

While most reporters focus on FDWU exploiting such �poor� illegals via money transfer fees, the real victims of this avarice are Americans losing jobs to invaders while being taxed to support and service them.

FDWU American employee stakeholders are happy for work in our ever-shrinking domestic job market; yet their personal, short-term economic gains accelerate our nation�s decline. In just seven years, the number of FDWU money transfer �agents� rose from 55,000 to 200,000, with just 65,000 being US storefronts. As an aside, since 9/11, FDWU has paid $11 million in fines to government regulators for failure to comply with money laundering laws.

First Data/Western Union truly has taken the lead in promoting massive immigration and �rights� for immigrants� -- including illegal aliens -- funding many subversive tax-free groups who boast of lobbying for drivers licenses, healthcare, food, housing, education, instate tuition discounts and amnesty for millions of illegals. (See; www.firstdatawesternunion.org)

As part of its self-serving efforts to expand its border-jumper customer base, FDWU in 2004 began hosting host a series of immigration forums across the nation. CEO Fote characterized these forums as promoting �..... a more enlightened debate...This debate must take place in full support of the respect and dignity of immigrants and their families."

(Fote outlines First Data�s ruinous immigration strategy for America, a must-read posted at, Read)

For the record, FDWU�s rabidly open borders �Immigration Reform� Forum held last July in Denver -- where I was beaten up by a Mexican national employed by a nonprofit funded by FDWU�s Foundation -- did not in any way support the respect and dignity of this American Citizen.

FDWU also funded a Spanish-only Colorado Guide that tells illegal aliens how to access Citizen-funded services while avoiding detection and deportation. The Guide includes a sample family budget, allocating $200 per month to be wired from Colorado to �familia� in Mexico by....surprise (!) Western Union.

CEO Fote tells his own whiney Italian immigrant�s tale, which I (with artistic license) paraphrase here: The once-great Roman Empire stupidly opened its gates to self-serving, foreign hordes with no allegiance or loyalty to the Empire�s survival. Greedy, elitist and lazy Roman leaders who facilitated this invasion caused the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Centuries later, Grandpapa Fote ditched still-shakey Italy, destroyed by his own forefathers, and came to America as an economic refugee. And today, I -- Charles -- repeat Roman history... I came, I saw, I brought in the hordes, I destroyed.� Deja vu all over again, Chuck!

Most thinking Americans agree that First Data Corp�s financial fangs sink deep into America�s lifeblood, while its various stakeholders suckle on the deadly drizzle.

So gentle readers, please indulge my negative fantasy about an entirely different kind of stakeholder in the activities of First Data/Western Union:

A once safe, secure, and productive Citizenry is under siege by a creature feasting upon it. Those who first warned of this monster were dismissed as crazy alarmists, deluded by nightmares, hysteria, or whiskey. But the toll is now too great to ignore. The good Citizens must act quickly to survive. And act, they do!

�As I looked..on [in that] instant, came the sweep and flash of a great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the very throat; whilst at the same moment [the] bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.� One of the brave Citizens who had slain this hideous beast, himself now mortally wounded, cried: �I am only too happy to have been of service! Oh, God! it was worth this to die...The curse has passed away..And..with a smile and silence, he died, a gallant gentleman.� (Excerpted from Bram Stoker�s Count Dracula)

My fellow American Citizen Stakeholders. Boycott. Divest. Put Principles above Profits. Stop the Giant Sucking Sound as America is bled dry by the open-borders profiteers at First Data/Western Union. Our very survival depends upon it.

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Terry Graham, an American Citizen, was attacked by a Mexican national last July while attending an �Immigration Reform� Forum in Denver. She has filed a civil lawsuit against First Data/Western Union and her attacker. She can be reached at;