[luckylion]

"Banks are racist" is my very short summary of the supposed situation. The problem I have with such explanations is the same I have with "women get 20-30% less money for the absolute same work". Since labor is the major cost factor in most industries, any company exploiting that arbitrage would stomp their competitors.

Why wouldn't anyone want to get rich off of lending to minorities? Pecunia non olet, I'm sure even a committed racist would be quite happy to make 10% by lending to African Americans instead of 5% by lending to WASPs in a highly competitive market. They may not want to deal with them personally, but that wouldn't stop them. It's even more astonishing that rich Black people wouldn't do it, so I believe it requires a bit more of an explanation.

> But note that, when a pandemic unfairly makes it expensive for businesses with disproportionately white shareholders to lend, the taxpayer spends trillions to make it cheaper.

Are the shareholders mostly white? It's my understanding that most large investors are pension funds, insurance companies and the like, not individuals. We've supposedly saved the banks in pretty much every country because we'd wipe out those institutions, not because of some private individuals with giant investments.

[kiplkipl]

A) They are doing it

B) Markets aren't perfect

C) You have to fight against, or change the influence of (through, say, commentary in the media), the government's funding and regulation.

>Are the shareholders mostly white? It's my understanding that most large investors are pension funds, insurance companies and the like, not individuals.

Who owns and benefits from the funds?

[luckylion]

If "they" are doing it, where's the issue? Markets may not be perfect, but they're not that bad, especially when huge profits are waiting to be collected with little risk.

> Who owns and benefits from the funds?

Everybody that gets any kind of pension or has any kind of insurance. Is your point that the majority of those may be white and therefore they should've let them crash?

[kiplkipl]

> If "they" are doing it, where's the issue? Markets may not be perfect, but they're not that bad, especially when huge profits are waiting to be collected with little risk.

See C

>Is your point that the majority of those may be white and therefore they should've let them crash?

If you truly think that's what I'm saying, we're on very different pages. The pensions have greater political power than the people in black areas. Both of them have the same problem - an unfair pressure that drives costs of lending up - but when it affects the majority rich and white investors, spending money to fix it is much more palatable.