Today’s links Intuit: “Our fraud fights racism”: Apparently, ripping off Black people with the Freefile scam is a form of reparations. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2013, 2028, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Intuit: “Our fraud fights racism” (permalink) Today’s key concept is “predatory inclusion”: “a process wherein lenders and financial actors offer needed services to Black households but on exploitative terms that limit or eliminate their long-term benefits”: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2329496516686620 Perhaps you recall predatory inclusion from the Great Financial Crisis, when predatory subprime mortgages with deceptive teaser rates were foisted on Black homeowners (who were eligible for better mortgages), resulting in a wave of Black home theft in the foreclosure crisis: https://prospect.org/justice/staggering-loss-black-wealth-due-subprime-scandal-continues-unabated/ Before these loans blew up, they were styled as a means of creating Black intergenerational wealth through housing speculation. They turned out to be a way to suck up Black families’ savings before rendering them homeless and forcing them into houses owned by the Wall Street slumlords who bought all the housing stock the Great Financial Crisis put on the market: https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords That was just an update on an old con: the “home sale contract,” invented by loan-sharks who capitalized on redlining to rip off Black families. Back when banks and the US government colluded to deny mortgages to Black households, sleazy lenders created the “contract loan,” which worked like a mortgage, but if you were late on a single payment, the lender could seize…Pluralistic: Intuit: "Our fraud fights racism" (27 Sept 2023)