Financial ‘legislature’ restricts new home loans to certain races
Mortgage-lending giant Wells Fargo last week announced it will only provide new home loans to minorities as the bank prepares to step back from the mortgage market. Whites who are existing Wells Fargo customers will also be eligible for mortgages.
“Mortgage is an important relationship product, and our goal is to continue to be the primary mortgage lender to Wells Fargo bank customers as well as minority homebuyers. We are making the decision to continue to reduce risk in the mortgage business by reducing its size and narrowing its focus,” said CEO of Consumer Lending Kleber Santos in a press release. “As the largest bank lender to Black and Hispanic families for the last decade, we remain deeply committed to advancing racial equity in homeownership.”
The bank also announced a $100 million to “advance racial equity in homeownership” and the deployment of additional home mortgage consultants in “local minority communities”.
The move further lends credence to warnings by economists and lawmakers that banks and financial institutions are becoming the “new legislatures”.
“They can’t pass the Green New Deal in the United States Congress,” said New Hampshire State Rep. J.D. Bernardy, “but the banks can certainly implement it. The major banks, financial management firms, and insurance companies are de facto deciding how we will be able to live. They are becoming our new legislatures.”
“I think it is highly likely that within the next two years, you’re going to see financial institutions start to use a personalized social credit score of some kind to make decisions about things like your access to loans, your interest rate, or whether you’re eligible for insurance coverage,” said Heartland Institute Director Justin Haskins, according to an analysis by The Epoch Times. “All the signs are pointing to that happening very soon,” he said.
Wells Fargo also suddenly closed the account of Brandon Wexler last week, a well-known gun dealer who had been with the bank for 25 years. The bank suggested it will no longer do business with firearms dealers when it told Wexler it was too “risky,” according to The Reload.
In 2020, Wells Fargo suddenly closed Republican Senate Candidate Lauren Witzke’s bank account without explanation.
Chase Bank followed Wells Fargo’s decision by closing former Trump National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s bank account in 2021 for “reputational reasons,” according to The Heritage Foundation.
Bank of America, of its own volition, decided to track its customers who may have been at the Capitol on January 6 and report them to the FBI. Following the Capitol breach, payment processor Stripe stopped processing payments for Trump’s campaign and anyone who was at the Capitol that day.
In October, Bank of America also shut down the bank account of a popular conservative influencer and refused to provide an explanation.
American Legislative Exchange Council Chief Economist Jonathan Williams predicts that if enough progressive pressure is brought to bear on the financial system, it would mean “having people’s freedoms eroded without any legislation ever having to be passed, whether it’s companies with a radical take on ESG or FICO personal credit scores.”
