President Trump has tapped Mick Mulvaney head of the Office of Management and Budget, to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a bad sign for a number of reasons. As we noted back in 2012 in Financial Crisis and Leviathan, the CFPB was created during the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, not…
Read More »
Corey Lewandowski, an outside advisor to Donald Trump, wants the president to fire federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau boss Richard Cordray. Lewandowski doesn’t like CFBP rules that make it easier to sue finance companies, but firing Cordray will not be easy. He can only be fired for cause, and that entails a burden of…
Read More »
The Financial Choice Act designed to undo Dodd-Frank financial regulations has passed the House and as it moves to the Senate opponents are crying foul over attempts to weaken the federal Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB). Ed Mierzwinski of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group told Consumer Reports, “The bill would leave the successful…
Read More »
President Obama is vacationing in Hawaii, the state where he was born and spent his childhood. According to Anita Kumar of McClatchy News, this annual trip cost taxpayers $3.5 million and the total cost of the first family’s travel comes to $85 million, possibly $90 million when further records are released. All told, except…
Read More »
As we observed in “Financial Crisis and Leviathan,” a deep recession, widespread unemployment, and fathomless debt were the prevailing conditions when the Obama administration created the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011. The CFPB was based on the premise that consumers were unable to look out for themselves without help from the federal…
Read More »
As we observed in “Financial Crisis and Leviathan,” in its first 14 months the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new federal agency, did little besides expanding an already bloated and wasteful government. The CFPB duplicates the work of existing regulators and worsens a crisis government played a major role in causing through programs such…
Read More »
Politicians and pundits like to decry predatory lending, the practice of private banks and credit card companies preying on poor and vulnerable people. Indeed a new federal agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was recently established to ride herd on private lenders. As Brad Branan of the Sacramento Bee shows, the worst offenders would…
Read More »
The federal holiday of Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is supposed to be a tribute to American workers. While enjoying a day off, if they get one – government employees do – those workers might use the occasion to recall some other realities, including a longstanding government rip-off. As we noted in…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |