Thread by @ElonBachman

1\ BofA was started by Italian immigrants, who figured out that by *discriminating* between Northern and Southern Italians (whom US lenders couldn't tell apart), they could lend to the good Northern credits

https://twitter.com/realbpiscitelli/status/1405741687872233475

2\ Thus, the one-time biggest bank in the world succeeded because they figured out how to make finer and finer distinctions between individuals, which had a "disparate impact" on Southern Italians

But the alternative was no loans for any Italian immigrants. It was a win!

3\ Thanks to the Civil Rights Acts, "disparate impacts" are now illegal. E.g. a company asking about criminal history will incur the ire of the EEOC, because of the disparate impact on blacks

So a rational company just pulls out of black areas, leaving deserving blacks worse off

4\ An economy is a self-tuning system for encoding information. We're all richer when it uses more information. When we ignore reality and pass laws to prevent all information being used, it's like turning the resolution down on a monitor. It especially hurts the deserving poor.