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Showing posts from June, 2012

Crowdfunding and Minority Firms

(Photo from: The JOBS Act: Crowdfunding Guide to Small Businesses and Startups.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MT104U1/ ) In April, President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. A provision in the law establishing crowdfunding as a mechanism to spur start-ups has the potential to significantly help minority firms. Large financial institutions, which are supposed to take small deposits from a large number of savers and use those funds to make fair and honest loans to individuals and small businesses, sometimes are not doing so. One only need look at Wells Fargo to see that credit decisions by large financial institutions are not always made in a racially or gender neutral manner. In 2011, a jury in Los Angeles found, according to the court document, that “the bank consistently and knowingly discriminated against borrowers in minority neighborhoods, resulting in these borrowers paying more for their loans than borrowers in nonminority areas.” Small-business own