Thread: Fannie Mae Is Being Sued

Marc--- right on. Actually during my second car loan with my local credit union my loan officer and I spoke about the whole dwelling type and how it figures into the credit approval process. I have lived in an apartment for the past-- hmmm... six years. It has been the same apartment for the past six years as well. My loan office told me basically about the samething that Marc was explaining in his post. Basically a mortgage and a home is a true asset. You default on a loan or what have you and they can put a lien or judgement against your property. They can recover something. An apartment dweller who does not own their apartment can pick up and leave without a problem.

In my area (within the a radius of 100 miles) we have at the very least--- eight universities (I say at least 8 because there are some smaller colleges, junior colleges, and well though of community/technical colleges that I am unable to count off hand). With this population, most people in these areas are living in apartment homes year round. Most of these people are students, young adults, single people of all race and gender types. I can definitely see why a lender would look at dwelling types since I know especially in my area people move around constantly. It is rare for someone to even stay at the same apartment for over a year.

Racism is a little off of the subject, but I would like to add a few things.

Last November, I did a research paper on pay inequities. Racism exists everywhere! But not just racism, sexual discrimination is right there too. In every job market out there, white males made more money than anyone else.

For jobs that were prodominately male, the pay scale went down as women began to saturate that particular job sect. Like Teachers, nurses, secretaries, even the engineering field (although in a different manner). Here is a study that I came across while doing my research: a department with 2 males and 2 females. The department is expanding and is going to hire one more employee. Everyone within that department did not want the firm to hire a female. Want to know why? Because female saturated job sects recieve lower pay!

The white man may have a harder time getting ahead these days because he isn't the only one out there for the job. He now has competition.

My college advisor is a black woman. She is extremely intelligent and a wonderful source of guidance for me. I don't know what I would do without her. Also, I am a poor white/american indian female. A few years ago when I was in dire straights, guess who helped me out? Black women. They knew the most about the system and how to get what one needed to take care of one's family. These people(women) were genuinely concerned and helped me. I will never forget that.

Just had to say a few things.

Actually just released from the Census Bureau the highest average family income does not come from caucasian families, but Pacific Asian and Asian Indian families. Caucasions were next followed by Latino/Hispanic families and lastly by African American families.

Women of course still made less money than men, but the gap did close this year.

Abraham Lincoln:

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

Author unknown "To be born a free man is an accident; to live a free man is a responsibility; to die a free man is an obligation."

http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/reso...e/results.html

http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/lacourpaper.pdf

http://www.law.emory.edu/ELJ/volumes/spg98/mahoney.html

http://www.ncpa.org/pd/law/lawdefg.html

http://www.phil.frb.org/cca/capubs/cascade39.pdf

and the list goes on.

"That system, says the suit, has a 'disparate impact' on minority applicants and treats them less favorably than white applicants."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002Sep25.html

thanks for links, Greg.
A couple of points--I was watching a comedian tonight joking about the ultimate game show prize for a black contestant would be "good credit" or using an Asian's credit report as their own. Greg's link's show this to be true. This is often a joke in the Black community. Even Oprah jokes about shopping, and praying the her "gold" card goes through.

in reference to the Abe Lincoln post, During the Civil War, before signing the Emancipation, Lincoln met with all the great Black leaders of the time to discuss what he was doing. In his great wisdom, he told them that Black people would never be accepted and equal in America, always discrimated against; that he would gladly set up a new nation in Africa (similar to Liberia) where former African slaves in America could live without always having to fight the majority. Some might say, Lincoln was just trying to placate the South or some other ulterior motive, but i believe Lincoln saw beyond the immediate future. If you look in any country where there is a majority and a large minority, whoever is in power discriminates against the other group.
Unfortunately, it easy for people to blame the "others" for why they aren't getting the jobs, opprotunity, etc. that they have been denied. I can't tell you how many times i have heard lower class whites and blacks, blaming Mexican immigrants for taking their jobs.
The real point is that discrimination has now become Socio-economic and extremely difficult to pin down. That's how the powers that be want it. More "white" people are affected by this for no other reason than they make up a majority of the population, even tho' it's a smaller total percentage. Unless you are living off the interest of the interest of your money in the bank, in some way you are being discriminated against. At least, with a clean credit report, one has a better chance of truly living the "American" dream and creating a financially-sound future.

humblemarc

Since it seems my example with Household isn't entirely getting across, and since GFisher has been exacting enough to bring up the correct legal term, I'll give an example of "disparate impact" and how it relates to racism/discrimination.

Let's suppose that a business, for no practical reason, decides to hire only people with a full head of hair. This would potentially represent defacto discrimination against two classes of people: men, who go bald much more often than women, and older men, who go bald more often than younger men. It doesn't matter if the business intended to discriminate or not; their hiring practices have a disparate impact on older men, and could therefore be considered discriminatory. One could conceivably make a similar case with the ironically named Household and their love of homeowners. I'm not familiar with the suit against FNM, but I'm assuming it's along these same lines.

Sassy, what I meant when I said the thread was getting out of hand was that it was veering completely off topic. Everyone's been civil enough; it's just that this discussion was going in a direction other than what the board is intended for, that's all.

Of course, it's disciminatory against non-homeowners. Owning real estate is what our country is based on. It's one of the principle reasons the country was founded. Ever see those late night T.V. shows about real estate investing? There's some truth to those. All rich people either started in real estate or own tons of it now. All the tax laws in America favor the real estate owner, even above the small business owner. That's what i do for a living, and i recommend to anyone who will listen to buy at least one rental property as a supplement to their retirement fund. Or at least invest in some other real estate related investment. It returns the greatest returns at the least risk.
But, yes, it does indirectly (or maybe intentionally) discriminates against Blacks, but other groups too. It just so happens that a larger percentage of blacks have poor credit or don't have enough saved money to put a downpayment on house.

humblemarc

To all,

I wrote the response below for another thread and after reading this one I decided to bring it to this intelligent and lively discussion. All of the posts here have been thoughtful and respectful for the most part...and I humbly present my thoughts and hope it doesn't bring the discussion down.

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WOW what a great discussin...so great I couldn't resist adding my anecdotal knowledge here so bear with me if I bore you.

As a former corporate banker I am very aware of how every facet of credit providing and banking access is still discriminatory but now they have the veneer of "compliance" to gloss it right over.

I worked for a large bank in NYC and we merged with another large bank...well then started the meetings regarding which branches in the city should be and could be closed. That's when the word "redlining" popped up. This basically means you have to tiptoe around low income folks as it pertains to banking and housing access. Now in my small little brain I could not see the difference in these "glossed" over compliance discussions and out and out discrimination. I mean when we are compelled by law to treat potential "redlining" people differently it is a form of discrimination.

A better analogy...when I started out in my career (very young and dumb I might add) the CEO of this Fortune 500 corporation very generously addressed his new recruits. Somewhere near the end of his remarks he mentioned opportunities were there for everyone as he had 2 female sr. execs and 1 wheelchair bound sr. exec.. In my naivete (and complete stupidity) I raised my hand and asked this question "wouldn't it be even more impressive if you could not name the number of females and other under represented minorities as they would be too numerous to remember?" Well of course my new boss fell off his chair and the CEO was struck speechless...and a few weeks later I had my resume updated and was snowing the sidewalks of Chicago with them...lol.

So no matter what system is put into place it will be ultimately be discriminatory to those excluded minorities. There is a large segment of our population that probably thinks fico is a great name for a dog from the pound. So while we white-anglo-saxon-protestant-catholic-jews bitch and moan about the inefficiencies of the credit scoring business there is an equal population that wouldn't even dream of obtaining an Orchard Bank card much less and AMEX green.
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The issues of race discrimination, reverse discrimination and inequities in all our financial sytems are complex and convoluted. I unfortuantely don't have access to lexis or westlaw or else I would be able to obtain the pleadings in this case...but I am sure that "redlining" has to be in there somewhere. Is this a color issue...yes and no...while there are waspcs (white anglo saxon protestant catholics) living in these so called "redline" areas there are predominantly inhabited by under represented minorities.

While my background is wasp privileged I have seen for myself the out and out discrimination against the URMs and feel compelled when confronted with a "reverse" discrimination complaint to respond that the blacks in this country suffered years of repression and denial of opportunities and should definitely be given opportunities that have been handed to their caucasian counterparts on a silver platter.

I would also like to add that every type of standardized test in this country from the ssat,sat,gmat,gre and lsat is geared toward the white middle class and their experiences and opportunities in life that are basically denied to kids in the inner city.

So, sassy, while I hold you in high regard as one of the brightest and best researchers on this site I have to say that your son might be facing some obstacles in getting his foot in the door...but nothing that come even close to the struggle that the "redline" population has endured.

I many times ask myself "what can I do" to resolve the "disparate" population. My life decision was to go to law school and upon graduating work in the public service area in order to give back to those less fortunate than myself. It is in this way I can make a strong statement and hopefully aid people who otherwise would have no access to the legal system.

Thanks all for a very compelling and interesting discussion. This level of discussion mazkes me proud to be included in the CN group.

clc