Posted on 01/18/2008 10:56:09 AM PST by Lorianne
... pessimism was hard to avoid during the early sessions of this latest economic summit, convened January 5-9 in New York City by the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. The summit's theme, Jackson reiterated time and again, was the "structural inequality" that has persisted in American society long after the end of legal segregation. The main item on the opening day's agenda was the subprime mortgage implosion, its impact on black communities and its larger ramifications for a national economy barreling toward recession. Black homeowners have been hit particularly hard by the mortgage crisis, largely because predatory lenders have been steering them toward subprime loans for years, even when they could afford prime rates. According to Valerie Rawlston Wilson of the Urban League, home equity accounts for nearly 90 percent of black homeowners' total net worth. So as the housing market collapses, much of the trumpeted new wealth that has accumulated in black communities in recent decades will go with it.
"There is no question that a black or Latino family is twice as likely to receive a subprime loan as a white family," fumed Lewis Fidler, a white New York City Councilman who participated in the day's second panel, "The State of Home Foreclosures." "If that's not a civil rights issue, I don't know what is."
If the loans weren’t illegal when they were made, then why should government have anything to say about it now? Ex post facto?
You're right, Lewis, you don't know what is... Interestingly, the underlying basis for his complaint is his apparently racist belief that 'black and Latino families' are not as smart as 'white families', and that therefore they are unable to figure out something as complicated as a mortgage...
TD.....how in the world did you apply what I said to YOU?????
“There is no question that a black or Latino family is twice as likely to receive a subprime loan as a white family,” fumed Lewis Fidler, a white New York City Councilman who participated in the day’s second panel, “The State of Home Foreclosures.” “If that’s not a civil rights issue, I don’t know what is.”
Lewis Fidler is a chemically stupid imbecile. The reason blacks and hispanics were given these mortgages is because the loan industry was forced to by ethnic front groups. Prior to giving these riskier loans the banks were accused of being racist. So they loosened up the loan requirements to help lower income people. Now that those people can’t pay and they go into foreclosure... Well, that’s obviously racism from the loan industry, right?
Sounds more like a personal responsibility issue.
the dirty little secret here...is that many of the predatory lenders were actually mortgage brokers... who lived in the same neighborhoods these loans were made, and knew that many of their clients would have qualified for prime rates, and actually steered them to the sub-prime market for their own financial gain. So if Jesse wants to scream racism...he might want to investigate his own backyard before flinging around generalizations.
Red-lining has to do with not showing/selling property in a defined area, to people of color, etc. Not the mortgage process.
Yes, and this is exactly why credit scoring was created, to avoid the charge of racial bias in lending while allowing the lender to filter out risky borrowers. A credit score is based on objective criteria such as payment history and indebtedness. The people who took subprime loans were those with subprime credit scores.
I take that back. You're correct. That was probably one of the questions I got wrong on my real estate exam.
If they couldn't afford the loan, they shouldn't have taken the loan.
Pretty simple idea, but it seems to work.
Catastrophic implies that it was an outside agency that caused it to happen.
“structural inequality” my ass.
if anything, it’s the affirmative action mumbo jumbo that’s making a joke of the idea of equal opportunity.
Thank you for your service, Terrence.
It’s possible that there may have been some biases in lending, that some people got subprime loans who should not have.
But my view is that this bias was most likely on the basis of socioeconomic class, not race. I can’t see why a middle-class black person would do anything different than any other middle class person when looking for a loan. He/she would shop around, check credit scores, and be fully informed of his or her borrowing options.
Jesse Jackson’s “victim” is more probably a poor, uneducated person with little financial sophistication. But this sort of person is more likely to be white than black or hispanic, although there are blacks and hispanics who fit the description. But this is hardly the sympatheic victim that Jackson or the Nation is comfortable with portraying. Classism is simply one of the prejudices that Jackson and the Nation, as well as most liberals, are still comfortable wearing. Poor whites...ewww....don’t they vote Republican??
The accusation of racial bias, however, stings deeply. It prompts activists to act, legislators to pass laws and bank lawyers to make settlements out of court.
But isn’t it interesting that Jackson portrays the victim in such a racially determined way? As if only black people and hispanics can’t figure out that they are being ripped off? How does he know that the race of the victim even mattered in the case of this injustice? Who is the racist here?
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