Racial Predatory Loans Fuel Housing Crisis: Study

"Predatory lending aimed at racially segregated minority neighborhoods led to mass foreclosures that fueled the U.S. housing crisis, according to a new study published in the American Sociological Review.

Predatory lending typically refers to loans that carry unreasonable fees, interest rates and payment requirements.

Poorer minority areas became a focus of these practices in the 1990s with the growth of mortgage-backed securities, which enabled lenders to pool low- and high-risk loans to sell on the secondary market, Professor Douglas Massey of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and PhD candidate Jacob Rugh, said in their study.

The financial institutions likely to be found in minority areas tended to be predatory -- pawn shops, payday lenders and check cashing services that "charge high fees and usurious rates of interest," they said in the study.

"By definition, segregation creates minority dominant neighborhoods, which, given the legacy of redlining and institutional discrimination, continue to be underserved by mainstream financial institutions," the study says."

Gold Rush Back Again in the Western US?

A prime example of the effects of our economy, a small construction business owner named John Brewer who lost his job as a result of our sour economy, found income through one of the oldest pastimes of the "Old West." Prospecting for gold. Through everything with our economy, gold (XAU=X 1268.65 -0.13%) has steadily rose in price and has kept a very high value and shows no signs of falling. At 1268.65, an ounce of gold is quite a "pretty penny" in the eyes of those struggling to keep their small businesses up on their feet, or their own lives stable. Though incredibly old-fashioned, prospecting has become a simple way to make a quick buck as it is rarely government-regulated outside designated mines and areas. This gives people a unique opportunity to gamble time away from their businesses and work that they may have lost to do what built up wealth in the West, searching for gold. When asked the prospectors find their gold, the only response that anyone could get from someone who knows what their doing is, "That's like asking an angler where his secret fishing spot is."