Clinton left a rhetorical door open for Sanders to connect Wall Street and race, but he didn’t do it
Bernie gave Clinton a pass on so many fronts (and yet he is attacked for anything he says about Clinton). I wondered why he didn't talk about the predatory lending, especially by Wells Fargo (and especially after Clinton made the comment about racism in relation to the big banks who had preyed on minorities). Of course Trump will walk right through that door. When you are counting on an overwhelming number of Black Voters showing up at the polls, I think Clinton might have a problem. It also makes you wonder why she won't release those transcripts...
While Bernie did point out that Black Americans had lost half their wealth, he really didn't discuss why.
From the Article:
If we broke up the big banks tomorrow," Clinton asked, "would that end racism?"
Logically, it was an odd thing to say. After all, lots of things worth doing, even political things, won't "end racism."
Clinton probably also understood that most people don't draw a connection between Wall Street corruption and race
According to one study, about two-thirds of all subprime loans between 2000 and 2007 were made to people who already owned their homes. The targets were often elderly, in particular men and women of color. Visiting loan officers convinced these borrowers to use the homes they'd poured their savings into their whole lives as ATM machines.
Subprime was different. It was fueled by a particular kind of predatory lending that targeted a very specific group of people.
In the 2000s, armies of smooth-talking real-estate hustlers from companies like Countrywide and New Century poured into residential areas across the country, but particularly into black neighborhoods. They made wild promises, in many cases offering huge loans in exchange for little or no money down.
Once the agents got signatures on these loans, they quickly sold them up the financial river to Wall Street, where the great banks repackaged them for resale at huge profit to pension funds and other investors. The scheme depended on getting huge numbers of names on new loans.
Thanks to a number of settlements, we now know that some companies got many of those new signatures via intentional strategies targeting black and Hispanic customers. The most infamous example was Wells Fargo, which paid a $175 million settlement for systematically overcharging black and Hispanic borrowers. (WELLS FARGO WHO CLINTON BACKER WARREN BUFFET IS HEAVILY INVESTED IN. When the news about this started hitting he also said he was really proud how Wells Fargo did business. When I heard this interview I realized his whole image was a false facade.)
It came out that a Maryland office of the bank referred to subprime loans as "ghetto loans," and pushed its loan officers to unload as many as possible on the "mud people" of Baltimore and the surrounding suburbs. A crucial element involved pushing expensive and dangerous subprime loans on people who qualified for the safer, lower-interest prime loans.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-line-that-may-have-won-hillary-clinton-the-nomination-20160428#ixzz479A5BcBm
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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-line-that-may-have-won-hillary-clinton-the-nomination-20160428
