Redlining officially ended in 1968, but it still persists. DOJ: Buffett company discriminated against Black homebuyers A Pennsylvania mortgage company owned by billionaire businessman Warren Buffett’s company discriminated against potential Black and Latino homebuyers in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware, the Department of Justice said Wednesday, in what is being called the second-largest redlining settlement in history. Trident Mortgage Co., a division of Berkshire Hathaway’s HomeServices of America, deliberately avoided writing mortgages in minority-majority neighborhoods in West Philadelphia like Malcolm X Park; Camden, New Jersey; and in Wilmington, Delaware, the Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in their settlement with Trident. As part of the agreement with the government, Trident will have to set aside $20 million to make loans in underserved neighborhoods. “Trident’s unlawful redlining activity denied communities of color equal access to residential mortgages, stripped them of the opportunity to build wealth, and devalued properties in their neighborhoods,” said Kristen Clarke, an assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a prepared statement.
I tried to find an article that didn't put Buffet in the headline. Trident was a subsidiary of a group that was absorbed by a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. But all the headlines were about Buffet.
This is not shocking at all, this type of discrimination has been going on forever. A certain contingent loves to tell us that racism doesn't exist anymore and that minorities have the same exact opportunities as whites so they need to stop crying and blah blah, but those of us with a brain know what the truth is.
What I don't see being discussed is the nexus between the population and the credit ratings/defaults. If the lines are very similar, are they redlines defined by race/ethnicity or are they green lines defined by credit rating & default rates? Most things that I recall from the Clinton years, the lines were almost identical. Should a bank have to make loans in areas where the loans are likely to lose money? Did they deny everybody, credit worthy or not, or just a higher percentage of denials than other areas where credit ratings were better? Were loans denied due to low property value from the degradation of the community? these details matter even if the people running the office were bigots and racist. Are these cases being decided based on the numbers or on the optics?
Funny, my reaction when I saw the title of the thread was that it was a company associated with Jimmy Buffett.
Literally clicked here to say the same thing. (Full disclosure, full fledged guilty pleasure parrot head here. )
Actually depending on the criteria you use Jimmy is basically a billionaire too. His net worth has been as high as 900M and thats a bit subjective.
Vicious cycle. Banks don't loan, borrowers pursue other higher interest financing, increases default rate, over policing leads to job loss, leads to defaults, etc. Our racial caste system, like all caste systems, creates its own stratification, which is then viewed as naturally occurring.
Had no idea he was that rich. Depending on the criteria you use, I’m also a billionaire. The criteria would involve lying.
A couple years ago someone took the original redlines from the 30s and overlaid them on a map of households by race from census data. It was kind of shocking how those enforced boundaries from 90 years ago were still in place.
This isn't the one I remember seeing, but the same basic idea. You can still see the redline boundaries 80 and 90 years later. https://ncrc.org/redlining-score/
Thing about JB is he has had a 900M net worth but has businesses worth much more probably. Dude is a walking bank.
