Corrupt Banks Preyed on Poor Communities

The New York Times published a story that lays out how a bank -- in this case, Wells Fargo -- preyed on poor communities -- in this case, African Americans in Baltimore -- for greedy, disgusting reasons.  Please read this article.

Here's a snippet--

As she describes it, Beth Jacobson and her fellow loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank “rode the stagecoach from hell” for a decade, systematically singling out blacks in Baltimore and suburban Maryland for high-interest subprime mortgages.

These loans, Baltimore officials have claimed in a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo, tipped hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in taxes and city services. 

Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages. Another loan officer stated in an affidavit filed last week that employees had referred to blacks as “mud people” and to subprime lending as “ghetto loans.”

This is one of a number of examples of the kind of corruption that is killing our economy.  Let's hope these banks and, more specifically, the people who authorized this loan strategy, get what's coming to them.