America Has a Financial Watchdog—Now We Must Fight to Keep It

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Even before Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau take on the most deceptive, exploitative consumer rip-offs in the financial services industry, Republicans are maneuvering to make the mission extremely difficult—if not downright impossible.

Witness House Republican efforts to deny funding to the Treasury Department and Warren during the period when they are tasked with getting the bureau up and running. And Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said he'd want to "revisit"—meaning emasculate—the financial reform bill if the GOP regains the majority in Congress in November. "The consumer agency bothers me the most," Shelby said. "I thought the creation of it and the way it was created was a mistake."

That's why the remarkable coalition that took on the financial titans during the reform debate, and then successfully waged a campaign for Warren's appointment to build the bureau, now needs to reinvigorate its effort to create a truly strong and independent agency.

At the height of the fight, the financial industry mobilized an army of 2,603 lobbyists, including 73 former members of Congress, and it was spending $1.4 million a day to eliminate the agency.

But Americans for Financial Reform (AFR)—a broad and diverse coalition that included the AARP, the AFL-CIO, the Economic Policy Institute, USAction, the National Urban League and Public Citizen, among others—worked with congressional allies and organized constituent pressure to ensure a much tougher bill than corporate lobbyists bargained for. And the intent is that the new consumer bureau will work to end credit card rip-offs and debt-relief scams, police the troubled mortgage market and predatory lending, and resolve consumer complaints.

Read Katrina's full column at WashingtonPost.com.

[Heracles 417]

Lame, what sort of an idiot wants consumer protection. Profit over Americans! Is the way to go.

What's wrong with signing an individual up to a 5% interest rate and then switching it to 18%? They should have read the fine print. Yep, the same fine print that Harvard legal scholars find hard to understand, let alone some average Joe.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Heracles

[^_^ 5,021]

Lame, what sort of an idiot wants consumer protection.

If you want to live under socialism, move to that hellhole we call Canada. Or worse, exile yourself to that barren backwater we call Australia.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

riiiiiiiight, and i'm a monkey's uncle.

All this 'agency' does (if you can call it that) is take focus off the big picture in the financial markets.

I still love the term 'predatory lending.' It's such a joke. People who get into those binds are at no fault but their own. If you can't read the black and white and if you get screwed over, that's your fault and no one elses.

[^_^ 5,021]

riiiiiiiight, and i'm a monkey's uncle.

All this 'agency' does (if you can call it that) is take focus off the big picture in the financial markets.

I still love the term 'predatory lending.' It's such a joke. People who get into those binds are at no fault but their own. If you can't read the black and white and if you get screwed over, that's your fault and no one elses.

I agree that people should read the documents they sign. No argument there.

However, do you agree that people should not knowingly lie or misrepresent the financial products they are selling?

[Heracles 417]

I still love the term 'predatory lending.' It's such a joke. People who get into those binds are at no fault but their own. If you can't read the black and white and if you get screwed over, that's your fault and no one elses.

I've heard this argument a lot but am yet to see any actual evidence of it, beyond mere opinions.

A similar consumer agency in AUS is why they have 30 broadband providers versus the 1 I have here, 2 once FIOS rolls around.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I agree that people should read the documents they sign. No argument there.

However, do you agree that people should not knowingly lie or misrepresent the financial products they are selling?

I was taught from the moment I was able to write my name to read and understand everything I was signing and to never just trust the word of the personal placing a document in front of me.

While I don't agree with people being misleading, everything is always in black and white if you look though. It's just like the TV commercials that advertise products with an asterick. Gotta read the details to make sure they aren't full of #######.

[Heracles 417]

If you want to live under socialism, move to that hellhole we call Canada. Or worse, exile yourself to that barren backwater we call Australia.

touche touche.

You're right, who wants to be like those lame azzed losers, let alone touch their shitty Q.O.L, every shittier cities [towns, roads and infrastructure] and the shittiest of em all - a decent standard of living.

Who wants that? Who want to live in a country where one does not have to worry 24/7 about being exploited? This is America God dammit, it's your ###### right to be exploited.

Sometimes I feel like punching myself out, for being from such a shitty, backwards, poor, bankrupt, high unemployment, low Q.O.L county.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I've heard this argument a lot but am yet to see any actual evidence of it, beyond mere opinions.

A similar consumer agency in AUS is why they have 30 broadband providers versus the 1 I have here, 2 once FIOS rolls around.

See, while there's "30" providers there, there's probably really only one.

Unless those 30 providers all own/have their own cable lines.

It's the same with electricity laws here. There's a dozen providers, but they are all 'buying' the rights to use the lines that come to your house from the primary provider who owns the power lines....

[Heracles 417]

I was taught from the moment I was able to write my name to read and understand everything I was signing and to never just trust the word of the personal placing a document in front of me.

While I don't agree with people being misleading, everything is always in black and white if you look though. It's just like the TV commercials that advertise products with an asterick. Gotta read the details to make sure they aren't full of #######.

What can you sign up to without agreeing to their details? You act as if we have so much choice and can just pick someone else.

This is the reason why most other OECD nations have consumer protection agencies. The UK's has been kicking some real azz and putting a stop to a lot of ridiculous practices.

[^_^ 5,021]

I was taught from the moment I was able to write my name to read and understand everything I was signing and to never just trust the word of the personal placing a document in front of me.

While I don't agree with people being misleading, everything is always in black and white if you look though. It's just like the TV commercials that advertise products with an asterick. Gotta read the details to make sure they aren't full of #######.

This is where we disagree a little. I see finance as a complex enough subject where it's not necessarily reasonable to expect everyone to be able to read fine print and 'get it'. Yes, people should still read their documents and try to understand them. However, the people who sell those products should also be required to be honest about what they are and what they do (and don't do). I am in favor of government making them be honest about this, seeing their unwillingness so far to do so on their own.

[Heracles 417]

See, while there's "30" providers there, there's probably really only one.

Unless those 30 providers all own/have their own cable lines.

It's the same with electricity laws here. There's a dozen providers, but they are all 'buying' the rights to use the lines that come to your house from the primary provider who owns the power lines....

There are ways around it. It's why their consumer protecting agency has mandated they must allow wholesale access and at a reasonable price to competitors. That means anyone was allowed to install their own DSLAM in exchanges and lease the copper lines from the carrier. Otherwise they could lease equipment from the telco and tunnel the services to their network. However, there are still issues there too, as the incumbent is playing games.

So what is the government there doing now? Something desperately needed in the US. Building their own wholesale [road equivalent] FTTH network, which anyone can use to access and resell services. This basically opens up the competition and gives the citizens the choice to access a range of providers, rather than the 1 or 2 [if that] we have here. AT&T and Verizon do not even compete in most markets, so you either get Fios or Uverse.

The thought that my friend in Manhattan only had a choice between TWC or wait for FIOS, is absolutely ridiculous and an epic failure. It's a textbook example of a monopoly or duopoly.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Heracles

[Heracles 417]

This is where we disagree a little. I see finance as a complex enough subject where it's not necessarily reasonable to expect everyone to be able to read fine print and 'get it'. Yes, people should still read their documents and try to understand them. However, the people who sell those products should also be required to be honest about what they are and what they do (and don't do). I am in favor of government making them be honest about this, seeing their unwillingness so far to do so on their own.

All consumer protection agencies do is ensure that the single consumer is not ripped-off or strong-armed by a corporation. For example, it ensures that if I agree to a 5% loan, it stays that for the duration. It ensures that being a day late, does not warrant a $40 fee or your interest rate to rise to 29.99%. They essentially step in when self-regulation fails or is flat-out being exploited.

At the end of the day, a productive and well oiled economy is the ideal economy. An economy rife with corruption or traps, is common amongst the third world. Once again, if such measures where anti this or that, then surely the countries that have implemented them, would be dirt poor rather than kicking the posterior of the average Joe middle-American.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Heracles

[^_^ 5,021]

An economy rife with corruption or traps, is common amongst the third world.

Yes. And this is precisely why immigrants from the third world are such prime targets of misleading ads and/or lying brokers (who are often of the same ethnicity as their victims).

[Krikit 1,164]

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