This happened today:
Wells Fargo, the nation's largest home mortgage lender, has agreed to pay at least $175 million to settle allegations that outside brokers discriminated against black and Hispanic borrowers during the housing boom, the Justice Department announced on Thursday....How upset is lesser-known brother and bestselling author David Limbaugh about this? Well, he's ... kind of upset. In fact, he can't stop tweeting about it:
An investigation by the department's Civil Rights Division found that independent mortgage brokers originating Wells Fargo loans charged higher fees and rates to minority borrowers across the country than they did to white borrowers who posed the same credit risk....
Another Holder shakedown. Do we really believe Wells Fargo engaged in racial discrim? I'm VERY SKEPTICAL. Must everything be about race?
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) July 12, 2012
How many truly believe a major financial institution is basing its loan decisions today on skin color? Come on.
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) July 12, 2012
Are people afraid to stand up against this blackmail for fear of being accused of racism? This is how tyranny occurs. Speak up. Outrageous
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) July 12, 2012
So the govt is going to force banks to make loans AGAIN irrespective of ability to pay (using race as a cudgel) & despite housing crisis?
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) July 12, 2012
Do people think they are insulated from the charge of racism bc they accede to bullying & blackmail. Even if they are, is it worth it?
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) July 12, 2012
The GOP needs to stand against this & rail against it. We are never going to repair race relations by acceding to liberal race-hustling lies
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) July 12, 2012
Here's a 2009 story about the "liberal race-hustling lies" that David Limbaugh wants the GOP to "stand against" and "rail against":
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.David Limbaugh thinks a bunch of black people just made that up, and convinced a black attorney general to use those made-up charges to shake down a poor, suffering trillion-dollar bank.
...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."
"We just went right after them," said Ms. Jacobson, who is white and said she was once the bank's top-producing subprime loan officer nationally. "Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans."
...At the heart of such charges is reverse redlining, specifically marketing the most expensive and onerous loan products to black customers.
The New York Times, in a recent analysis of mortgage lending in New York City, found that black households making more than $68,000 a year were nearly five times as likely to hold high-interest subprime mortgages as whites of similar or even lower incomes. (The disparity was greater for Wells Fargo borrowers, as 2 percent of whites in that income group hold subprime loans and 16.1 percent of blacks.)
...These practices took a great toll on customers. For a homeowner taking out a $165,000 mortgage, a difference of three percentage points in the loan rate -- a typical spread between conventional and subprime loans -- adds more than $100,000 in interest payments....
He's very upset about all this. In a totally not-racist way, of course. Because, of course, only black people and white liberals are racist.
