EthnicMajority

The subprime mortgage fiasco is sending tremors through Wall Street and has brought the U.S. economy near (if not into) recession. For African Americans and Latinos — the primary victims of the debacle — the mortgage meltdown may widen the considerable gap in wealth that already exists between whites and people of color. Even worse, some proposals to fix the problem of limited access to credit may end up doing more harm than good.

“We estimate the total loss of wealth for people of color to be between $164 billion and $213 billion for subprime loans taken during the past eight years. We believe this represents the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern U.S. history,” the Boston-based organization United for a Fair Economy noted in its report “Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008.”

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Two officials suspended by NASCAR are accused in a $225 million lawsuit of exposing themselves to a former co-worker, the Associated Press has learned.Tim Knox and Bud Moore have been placed on indefinite administrative paid leave.

NASCAR will not reveal the identities of the officials sent home Friday from Kentucky Speedway, but a person familiar with the investigation confirmed to AP on Saturday that Knox and Moore were suspended. The person requested anonymity because NASCAR’s investigation is ongoing.

NASCAR did not give a reason for the men’s suspension, and chairman Brian France cautioned against assuming the officials are being punished for allegations made in the lawsuit.

“Obviously we found some violations in our policy, but I would not jump to conclusions to assume that all of the allegations that were made are accurate,” France said at Michigan International Speedway, site of Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race.

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In February 2008 the average Hispanic-American over the age of 11 spent more time online than watching television, according to the Terra Networks-sponsored “Hispanic Syndicated Study,” conducted by comScore Media Metrix.

“In general, online Hispanics—independent of their language preferences and acculturation levels—are heavily engaged in technology,” wrote the report’s authors.

Every day, more than half (56%) of Hispanic-Americans surveyed said they spent at least an hour online, which was slightly more than the 50% who spent an hour or more watching TV.

On a weekly basis, Terra reported that more Hispanic-American Internet users spent 13 or more hours online (30%) than watched TV for the same amount of time (23%).

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The U.S. mutual fund industry is doing little to increase diversity and hire more minority workers, a senior executive at boutique investment firm Ariel Investments said this week.“The fund industry has to make a real commitment, not lip service, to diversity. And really go out of our way to find people of color to work in our organizations,” Ariel president Mellody Hobson told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

Ariel has long championed the cause of spreading financial literacy in the African-American community. Founder John Rogers is helping raise support and funds for Barack Obama.

“Name any well-known black portfolio manager besides John Rogers,” Hobson said on the sidelines of the annual Investment Company Institute (ICI) conference. “And, to our knowledge, I am the only black woman chair of a mutual fund board. That’s not progress,” she said. Hobson chairs the board of trustees of Ariel’s mutual funds.

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Although Hispanic Americans are saving for retirement, more than two-thirds do not use a financial adviser, a study by Prudential found.

Even Hispanic Americans with income over $50,000 typically do not have a professional advising relationship; only 35% report having a professional adviser, says the “Hispanic Americans on the Road to Retirement” report.

Those that do work with an adviser have a higher tendency to contribute to a retirement savings account (85% versus 54% of those without an adviser).

The number with advisers is lower in non-English-speaking households (12%) compared with English-speaking households (34%). Among Hispanic Americans that have an adviser, many choose a family member or friend (professional or nonprofessional). The study suggests that this could mean Hispanic Americans prefer fellow Hispanic Americans to advise them financially.

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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The good news for many of the agencies that came under the gaze of the New York City Commission on Human Rights is that they met their goals for minority hiring in 2007. The bad news is critics are likely to be unimpressed.

For one, the goals were set by the agencies themselves. Second, some of them — most notably a handful of Omnicom shops — failed to meet even those goals. But perhaps more important, a closer look at the numbers shows African-Americans and Hispanics lag behind Asian-Americans and that agencies seem to lose minority hires as fast as they hire them. Following a two-year investigation by the CCHR, 15 advertising agencies in 2007 pledged to meet goals for minority hiring, presented as a percentage of total hires for the year. The goals will be monitored for three years, and agencies that don’t meet them will be subject to penalties.

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Editor’s Note: The current economic downturn could lead to the greatest loss of assets for communities of color that’s ever happened, says Alan Fisher, executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition since 1992, which advocates for the right of low-income communities and communities of color to have fair and equal access to banking and other financial services. Alan Fisher was interviewed by NAM Editor and host of UpFront, Sandip Roy.

Whether we call it a recession or not, what’s the effect of what’s happening in the economy on the low-income communities who are part of your coalition?

I think low-income people and people of color have been struggling for many years now. The “recovery” has not helped them. Recent reports say that income levels for families are the same dollar-wise as they were in 2000, which means they are worth much less now. Food prices are going up, gas prices are going up and we have a huge housing crisis.

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Xerox Corp. and representatives of current and former black sales representatives have settled a class-action lawsuit accusing the office-equipment manufacturer of racial discrimination.

The settlement would require Xerox to pay $12 million to 1,100 former and current employees and includes legal fees, said Diane Bradley, a lawyer who represented the employees.

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Wells Fargo, Minnesota’s second-largest employer, holds the title of the largest financial institution in the state. The banking giant has what it calls banking stores (180 in Minnesota), mortgage stores and financial stores dotting every area of the Land of 10,000 Lakes. But Wells Fargo also holds another title: the institution most likely to target minorities with high-cost (subprime) loans, regardless of income.

In fact, in a multi-state study last year by a variety of nonpartisan organizations, data indicated that Wells Fargo was 10 times more likely to sell a high-cost loan to African-American borrowers than whites. In Chicago, the city to suffer from the biggest racial disparities, 35 percent of African-Americans received high-cost loans (again, regardless of income) versus only 2.5 percent of whites. And how did the nefarious Countrywide Financial fare in this study? That financial institution had an African-American/white disparity ratio of 4.9, or half of that of Wells Fargo.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Exclude the Hispanic-American market and you make a huge blunder. Americans of Hispanic descent now spend so much that their buying power is estimated to reach US$1.2 trillion by 2011. Reaching the potent Hispanic-American market is one of the issues under discussion at the Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism (CMEx).

How potent is this market? Organisers of the Counterpart International-produced CMEx, to be held May 15 to 19 at the Holiday Inn San Juan on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, say that in just three years’ time, nearly one out of every six residents in the United States is expected be of Hispanic origin.

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