Big Banks Pushed "Ghetto Loans" for a Decade

But the Cons would have us believe that Barney Frank was to blame for the housing debacle in this country? Former loan officers and executives have signed affidavits that affirms that their banks knowingly pushed people who were minorities into subprime loans at higher interest rates even though they qualified for more conventional loans.

Bank Accused of Pushing Mortgage Deals on Blacks

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.

Another foreclosed house on Baltimore's North Brice Street, which shares a downed fence with a house still lived in.
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.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/07baltimore.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5799604
http://consumerist.com/2009/06/affidavits-on-how-wells-fargo-gave-ghetto-loans-to-mud-people.html
http://consumerist.com/2009/06/affidavits-on-how-wells-fargo-gave-ghetto-loans-to-mud-people.html

 

It seems like the people that actually were involved on the ground floor of the subprime debacle fault the banks for creating it but the Cons prefer to point to Barney Frank as the sole creator for some reason. Maybe the banks are funding their campaigns or something. Naw! Could never happen. Right!

 

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