When will the government apply its anti-racketeering laws to itself?
The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explicitly prohibited the agency from regulating auto dealers, which the agency would like to accuse of racism. Thus the agency has gone after wholesale finance providers instead. These bulk lenders quote dealers an interest rate that dealers, in negotiation with buyers, then “mark up” within fixed parameters.
Not that the government alleges actual bias against anyone (except in casual remarks to the press). It alleges only “disparate impact” due to neutral business practices by the wholesale lenders. The government doesn’t even know the race and gender of car buyers (dealers are prohibited from collecting this information). Instead it relies on something called the Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG) method to classify individuals by ethnicity according to last name, census tract and zip code.
