The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown • Hacker News Board

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#81

Post by MattGaiser » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

raziel2p wrote: post #71

aliante wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the area where he wants the bank to “invest.” 608 19th street Ensley. Look on Google Streetview and Google Earth. Roofs have collapsed. Half the windows around there are smashed. A few large holes in walls. What would you value buildings in that area at?

Where did you get the exact addresses of the buildings he wanted to invest in?

Not sure where others found them, but there is an investor prospectus on his website.

https://853a1197-2eb8-42a1-88fd-f004b8256f56.filesusr.com/ug...

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#82

Post by lazyjones » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

papaf wrote: post #15

lazyjones wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this frustrating? The banks make a profit this way, just like you described. They are not public services. Banks that operate with alleged "systemic racism" are bound to lose out on profits to banks that don't, therefore the case for it isn't very strong in this situation.

They are not public services. And yet the public does bail them out which suggests a symbiotic relationship with the economy and that banks have some responsibility to the greater whole.

> yet the public does bail them out

Involuntarily, due to corruption of public officials. Don't read too much into it.

There have been some attempts to run banks in an "altruistic" manner. I don't know of a successful one, just failures.

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#83

Post by HideousKojima » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #72

macspoofing wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that doesn't change the fact that the thing discriminated PoC. Intent matters. Every policy you can ever create will always have differential impact on any group you create. That's just a fact of reality. If you set a policy that you can only get a mortgage if you have 20% down, that could impact some ethnic group more than another - but that differential impact does NOT mean it is a racist policy. > in the case of…

> but that differential impact does NOT mean it is a racist policy Oh it does. This unintentional racism is still racism, structural racism in this case as a decently diverse QA could have prevented this outcome. A PoC unable to get soap doesn't care why the soap dispenser refuses to disperse soap, all he cares about is that he's getting racially discriminated based on his skin color.

Does the gender gap in arrests, convictions, and prison population (which is several times larger than the racial gap) prove that our justice system is systematically/structurally biased against men?

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#84

Post by Traster » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #75

Traster wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the question is absolutely not whether ther policy was created with the intent of racism, because we don't live in a world where racism is defined as a guy in a pointy white hat who also happens to be the bank manager stringing black men up for cat-calling his daughter. Every policy has a differential impact, that doesn't mean we chose not to address them when we see them.

>Every policy has a differential impact, that doesn't mean we chose not to address them when we see them. What do you mean? If every policy has a differential impact, then your contention is that therefore we must address every differential impact? If, let's say, bank has a policy that you need 20% down payment to qualify for a mortgage, and let's say this has a differential impact on some group, how do you go about…

We don't need to chose to address every differential impact, only the ones that we see as being bad, or particularly worthy of attention, for example the systematic exclusion of black people from the normal financial tools that allow us to build wealth.

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#85

Post by jaclaz » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #40

jaclaz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The point is - as I see it - a little different, the valuation is lower (or in this specific case next to nothing) because the bank does not want to invest in a black neighborhood (racism) or because the bank has historical data saying that black neighborhoods (in general or that particular one) have lower value (pragmatism)?

You see how both of those are actually "racism", right?

The point is who exactly is racist.

The bank that reads the data or the environment that over the years created the conditions for the data (values) to be so low?

Or maybe the unknown people that compiled (or even forged) the data?

Let's for the sake of discussion bring it to a different form of discrimination (ageism).

Here (EU) in most countries you can have your driving license at 18 years.

When you go to an insurance company and you are younger than 21 or in some cases 25 years you will pay a much higher insurance rate for your car then if you are (say) 40.

Same goes for renting a car, you simply cannot rent one if below 21 or in some cases 25 years.

Now, the bad, bad, insurance and rent a car companies may be populated by bastards, or maybe for some reasons drivers below 21 or 25 years actually have an increased risk of accidents.

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#86

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #77

macspoofing wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Banks may not directly use race as a criteria, but the claim is that they use race as a criteria for property value, and then use property value as a criteria for loans ... You have to do the leg-work to show that Banks have a policy that is in intent racist because every policy you can ever think of will have a differential impact on any group you create - because groups will never be perfectly uniform. >Counting a…

Redlining is a real practice done by banks and credit issuers that use race criteria based on where you live to discriminate against people of color. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

[deleted]

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#87

Post by kyrieeschaton » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #77

macspoofing wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Banks may not directly use race as a criteria, but the claim is that they use race as a criteria for property value, and then use property value as a criteria for loans ... You have to do the leg-work to show that Banks have a policy that is in intent racist because every policy you can ever think of will have a differential impact on any group you create - because groups will never be perfectly uniform. >Counting a…

Redlining is a real practice done by banks and credit issuers that use race criteria based on where you live to discriminate against people of color. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

Redlining ended over fifty years ago. Pick a different bugaboo.

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#88

Post by TeaDrunk » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #75

Traster wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the question is absolutely not whether ther policy was created with the intent of racism, because we don't live in a world where racism is defined as a guy in a pointy white hat who also happens to be the bank manager stringing black men up for cat-calling his daughter. Every policy has a differential impact, that doesn't mean we chose not to address them when we see them.

>Every policy has a differential impact, that doesn't mean we chose not to address them when we see them. What do you mean? If every policy has a differential impact, then your contention is that therefore we must address every differential impact? If, let's say, bank has a policy that you need 20% down payment to qualify for a mortgage, and let's say this has a differential impact on some group, how do you go about…

You don’t have to have racist intents to execute a policy that enforces racism. Unfortunately when we talk about systems of society within humans, individual human intentions begin to dissipate.

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#89

Post by greenie_beans » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

aliante wrote: post #56

etchalon wrote: post #45

Reading these threads, it’s always frustrating to see people insist that it can’t be because of race. “There must be a logical, mathematical reason for this!” As a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10KSB program, one of the most shocking things I found amongst my cohort was how many of the black small business owners were struggling with credit and financing. It didn’t make any sense when we discussed their business. Oft…

Check out the area where he wants the bank to “invest.” 608 19th street Ensley. Look on Google Streetview and Google Earth. Roofs have collapsed. Half the windows around there are smashed. A few large holes in walls. What would you value buildings in that area at?

You can’t know Birmingham just from Google Maps. That’s a so-called opportunity zone...I thought this sort of development is exactly what is encouraged in those areas?

Re: The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown

#90

Post by ghufran_syed » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

johnyzee wrote: post #74

> Financial reparations to African American communities are key, argues Prof Baradaran This seems obvious and fair. Blacks have never been given a fair chance in America. > In 1863, when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, black Americans owned less than 1% of US total wealth. Nearly 160 years later, this number has barely budged. Just setting slaves free did not, in any way, put them on equal foo…

you might be interested by what a particular black professor has to say on the subject: https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/11/14/a-legacy-o...