How companies make millions off lead-poisoned, poor blacks

August 31, 2015 6:21 PM

What happens in these deals is a matter of perspective. To industry advocates, the transactions get money to people who need it now. They keep desperate families off the streets, pay medical bills, put kids through school [...] But to critics, Access Funding is part of an industry that profits off the poor and disabled. And Baltimore has become a prime target.

Baltimore and Freddie Gray, previously.

posted by Rustic Etruscan (21 comments total)

“What we do is provide equity for those people to buy homes,” said Access Funding chief executive Michael Borkowski.

And he really believes that, too. In his heart of hearts, he's the good guy. He genuinely believes that anyone, given a big lump sum of money, would do something utterly sensible and continue forward with their lives in a perfectly Homo economicus way. At worst, he might shrug and think, Well, it's not my fault some people can't handle money. There are resources to help them be more rational about things.

The mustache-twirling villains aren't the problem. It's the ones who can't tell good from bad that society really needs to worry about.
posted by Etrigan at 6:30 PM on August 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

I don't think he really believes that. People who do this are borderline sociopaths. They know what they're doing and they don't care as long as it's only immoral instead of illegal.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:35 PM on August 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

I disagree. This fellow knows that he preys on the disadvantaged. It's his whole business model.

May he burn in hell, if hell exists. And if it doesn't exist, then let's create one just to make his eternity a never-ending, raining sludge of lead paint chips into his open, lying mouth.
posted by CincyBlues at 6:37 PM on August 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

Wow. Caveat Emptor isn't enough when it comes to things like this. Are there really no laws protecting people whom the state knows to be cognitively disabled? You should be able to prosecute people who offer predatory deals to persons specifically selected for known or probable cognitive disabilities.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:42 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

The mustache-twirling villains aren't the problem. It's the ones who can't tell good from bad that society really needs to worry about.

It is very difficult to get a man to twirl his mustache, when his salary depends on his not twirling it.
posted by RogerB at 6:43 PM on August 31, 2015 [13 favorites]

I could believe that someone might offer less than the present value of the income stream and think of themselves as the good guy, since they're then taking all the risk about inflation and whatnot. 80% of the present value. Two-thirds of the present value. Maybe even half the present value. But there's no way you can pay 19% of the present value for an income stream and not know that you are evil.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:59 PM on August 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

the trick is to avoid thinking of your victims as entirely human.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:13 PM on August 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

God, these people are scum. I couldn't even finish reading the story, it made me so sick.
posted by town of cats at 8:37 PM on August 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

But there's no way you can pay 19% of the present value for an income stream and not know that you are evil.

There's a difference between amoral, immoral, and evil though. I don't think that buying out someone's future payments is evil, as "evil" implies -- at least as I understand the term -- an intent to harm or some measure of ill will. I don't think that's present here.

Far more likely that they're just immoral (i.e. they understand the consequences but don't care because they're making a ton of money). It's perhaps possible that they're amoral and really don't see the buyouts as being a morally-positive or morally-negative one. I doubt it (the phrase "knew or should have known" comes to mind...) but it's possible.
posted by -1 at 8:52 PM on August 31, 2015

Reading the article, a question comes to mind:

If it's true that "[a] lot of them can barely read", how on earth is a written contract considered tenable? Isn't there a pretty good argument that they lack capacity, particularly if the exact terms are only provided in writing?
posted by -1 at 9:00 PM on August 31, 2015

Well, it's not like people would use targeted Google ads for misspelled words to target the lead-poisoned and mentally challenged.
posted by benzenedream at 9:40 PM on August 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is pure evil.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:25 PM on August 31, 2015

Every day, it seems like there's a new level of Hell that has been opened or discovered. And plenty of human devils eager to populate it.
posted by bryon at 11:34 PM on August 31, 2015

I read this article a few days ago. Or rather, I tried. I couldn't finish because of an overwhelming urge to do violence to the people who run these scams. I'm not a violent person, but in this case, I found myself quite capable of thinking of a wide range of tortures for these people, and not one of them seemed to be close to sufficient.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:50 AM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

These sorry excuses for human beings had better hope there isn't a hell. They might want to hope there isn't reincarnation, either.
posted by Anne Neville at 5:53 AM on September 1, 2015

There's no hell, and no reincarnation. The only world we have to make this right is this one.
posted by clawsoon at 7:24 AM on September 1, 2015 [6 favorites]

This is why we need government. And we need it to represent, in particular, the interests of those less able to defend themselves. The market will not solve this. This is where we need "meddlesome" regulations. This is where we need to elect people who will appoint people who will write and enforce well-crafted thoughtful regulations to put these vultures out of business. Without it, the market will decide, in its amoral purity, that this is a Good Thing.
posted by jetsetsc at 8:23 AM on September 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

ms scruss taught adult literacy in SW Baltimore for a couple of years, and some of her students were victims of lead poisoning. They were the sweetest, most trusting people you could ever meet. The fact that there are corporations out there deliberately taking advantage of these very vulnerable people … I cannot wish violence on the perpetrators, but the companies must be disbanded and their assets redistributed back to the needy.
posted by scruss at 9:27 AM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

oh, and -1, a lot of people who are illiterate have remarkably ornate signatures to cover up for their lack of reading skills. The folks I met in Baltimore would've trusted you and signed anything, especially if you'd bought them dinner.
posted by scruss at 9:30 AM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I case you missed it, these (SLYT) used to cover the airwaves, ruining our evenings.
posted by IndigoJones at 12:38 PM on September 1, 2015

Well. It's not often my morning reading introduces me to an entirely new kind of evil.
posted by rokusan at 10:38 AM on September 2, 2015