zigzag, I don't want to upset you by putting you on levels below where you actually are.

Ya if they were raised by wolves.

There's more than that going on but obviously your attitude raises their hackles.

Why should I care? I don't treat the insensitive with sensitivity.

No reason why you should care. Not even if it's not about sensitivity.

Some people don't care and some people are happy with the consequences in the threads. If you tick both boxes then that's fine.

Loooooooool "consequences".

Fyp. The consequences in a thread are unimportant.

consequences in the threads. Absolutely.

I know you can only fixate on one thing to whine about but threads about politics have always been tricky things. Some people may be happy with how it works, I don't know but they sure seem to complain about the content a lot.

I love this guy

If that was true then there's no reason for being concerned with the issue identified by 5ive in the first place.

You think I'm concerned?

At the moment I think you tick both boxes so that's fine.

"Some people don't care and some people are happy with the consequences in the threads. If you tick both boxes then that's fine."

I would want to know more about what makes up the numbers. There is certainly nothing in there that is definitive. All we know is that some black and latino borrowers paid a certain amount more than some white borrowers with similar credit. Were the same brokers giving black people different rates then white people? Or were these brokers numbers compared to the whole of Wells Fargo? It is also important to note that this is one part of one lending institution. Also, it is extremely telling that these were independent brokers.

Is anyone here familiar with independent brokers that deal in subprime loans? I am some what familiar as many people from the auto industry went over there during the housing boom. That subset of the mortgage industry is like the buy here / pay here lots in the auto industry. It is a dirty dirty business. They pray on the poor neighborhoods and stick these people with the highest rates possible. Were black and latino people of the upper class charged the same discrepancy? If not, why not?

These details, along with others, are extremely important when dealing something like the accusation of institutional racism. You cannot just hand wave over them.

This is why I like discussing hypothetically. It is hard to find this data, especially from an unbiased source.

My question would be, if in fact the we found that when controlling for things like area, income, lending branches etc and found no discrepancy would this still count as racism? If we found that amongst upper class black people they paid the same as whites, does that make any difference in your determination of racism? If not, why?

Side note, who the **** is getting a $300,000 loan as a subprime borrower? That's crazy

I'm not always happy with the consequences in threads, but the consequences in threads are certainly unimportant.

Yeah, see, this post right here is a great big pile of disingenuous gibberish JAQ deflection. We have a freaking SETTLED CASE, but jibbers still thinks more information is needed. Gotta manufacture that controversy.

Okay so you don't tick both boxes.

Not quite sure why we got sidetracked a bit into important.

Jibs, I hope you will take this up more with ASP if he really wants to pursue it.

But at the very least you agree it could be institutional racism - is that correct?

So would it be fair to at least say that you aren't confident there is no problem of institutional racism?

I, for one, am waiting with bated breath as to what a car salesman has to say about the case. That's the true litmus test as to whether or not the lenders' business practices were racist. Who cares what the Department of justice, the federal courts, and the banks themselves said about the case. Jibby will tell us what's what.

There's no point asking Jibs what he thinks about it if all you want to know is what he thinks they think about it. He should be considering the information and trying to make sense of it.

Maybe unlike zigzag you are thinking about it at a higher level and the real objection is to what you think is Jib's motivations.

From what I have seen in his posting I doubt I will waste my time.

What that article gives us is symptom. Not a cause. Now, it is possible that institutional racism could be the cause of that symptom. But it seems that every time "evidence" is put forth for institutional racism it is the same sort of hand wavy statistics and when you dig deeper you see mass discrepancies.

Also, in almost everyone of these cases you can find the same symptoms of Asians getting a much better deal than whites. And yet no one is willing to state that there is institutional racism against whites. I wonder why what's good for the goose is not good for the gander. When X exists in situation A, people call it racism. But when X exists in situation B, all of the sudden no racism exists. Also, you are racist for bringing it up. This is why people like Fly don't like to answer questions. They know that their entire believe system will crumble against the slightest bit of scrutiny. And that scares him to death. People like you on the other hand aren't scared in the slightest, which is why I enjoy having a discussion with you.

Say someone defines rape as having sex with a woman. Then someone points out that this would mean that all men, and some women, are rapists once applied against all scenarios. Certainly no rational person upon realizing this would hold to their original definition. Agreed?

Am I absolutely confident? No. But given the inability for these sort of claims to hold up under scrutiny, I would still consider myself confident.

Post-institutional, with systemic remnants.

Settled with no admission of guilt, of course. That's often a business decision. I have no problem recognizing institution racism as defined must exist in the business world, because how could it not? Much is explained by the profit motive, which lends itself to exploitation of the less savvy. So as long as minorities are less educated they will risk getting shafted. This goes for poor white folk as well, and somehow I doubt the sub prime lenders were leaving money on the table when the sucker had blonde hair. For profit business is not all bad though, and I doubt we'll ditch capitalism anytime soon.

If we found that on average minorities paid more for a Camry than whites, is Toyota guilty of institutional racism? I understand why the outcome would lead some to that conclusion, but there was probably no individual racist act because we know if they would have allowed the car to go out the door at one price for a white they would sold it to a minority for the same price. To me, that sounds like commissioned sales people doing what commissioned sales people do. It seems like the DoJ is saying that it doesn’t matter that there is no individual discriminatory intent in the causal chain: so long as there’s a statistical aberration the institution in question is at fault.

So Foldn and duffee freely acknowledge the serious impact institutional racism has on minorities but don't think anything should be done because **** those people.

Jib, meanwhile, doesn't care if somebody has their kneecaps deliberately shattered because he stubbed his toe once.

Just an all around great thread, guys. I sure am glad we had this discussion.

Gotta wait for all the facts to come out.