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October 15, 2007
Again, the NY Times: Consumer roundup of the day.
You can always find a few interesting items in the New York Times to blog about. From Monday's paper: Yet another Study Finds Disparities in Mortgages by Race. From the story by Manny Fernandez: Home buyers in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods in New York City were more likely to get their mortgages last year from a subprime lender than home buyers in white neighborhoods with similar income levels, according to a new analysis of home loan data by researchers at New York University. While the story includes the obligatory quote from the Mortgage Bankers Association that the report does not prove discrimination, the article cites to numerous studies with the same results.
"There's no question that if you live in a predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhood you're going to be paying more for your mortgage," said Sarah Ludwig, executive director of the nonprofit [Neighborhood Economic Development] Advocacy Project, which is based in New York. Next, the story Group Plans to Provide Investigative Journalism by Richard Perez-Pena reports that the bankers-turned-philanthropists, Herb and Marion Sandler, are backing a new investigative journalism project, Pro Publica: "The plan is to do long-term projects, uncovering misdeeds in government, business and organizations." The Sandlers have invested their money in a lot of interesting and important public interest projects, after doing a lot of thinking and investigating of their own, so watch this one.Finally, although it doesn't mention the coming behavioral targeting workshop at the FTC on November 1-2, the story 1,200 Marketers Can't Be Wrong: The Future Is in Consumer Behavior by Stuart Elliott is a good runup to the event that is largely a response to important issues raised in an U.S. PIRG/Center for Digital Democracy complaint.
Posted by Ed Mierzwinski at October 15, 2007 06:20 AM
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