How The Bankers Created The Unrest In Baltimore

Wells Fargo Is Baltimore’s Real Looter

Wall Street created the nightmare economic context of the unrest in Baltimore. You don’t need to have watched The Wire, one of the greatest dramas in American television history, to know that Baltimore has some rough neighborhoods. But things got a lot worse when the subprime mortgage crisis blew up in 2008. The wealth destroyed by some of the biggest banks foisting predatory loans on unsuspecting, unprotected consumers was staggering, and triggered the Great Recession. Baltimore was hit particularly hard, and around the Baltimore area, the black community was specifically and intentionally targeted for these predatory loans. The resulting implosion dialed the black community’s wealth back to Segregation-era levels.

The subprime mortgage fraud was the biggest blow to the black community’s wealth since Civil Rights. About a dozen banks were charged with foisting bad loans onto black people. Wells Fargo was one of the worst offenders in the Baltimore area. According to testimony by Beth Jacobs, formerly one of Wells Fargo’s top loan officers, reported in the New York Times, the practice was overtly racist…