The CFPB is intended to protect the public from scams like Trump University. This is not in the best interests of Donald Trump. The CFPB therefore needs to be shut down.
11
The greedy strain of Republicans used to take some pains to pretend that their policies would benefit the public. They justified or spun their deeds in ways that could fool people into believing there was something in it for them.
Now they don't even bother with that. The complicit majority in congress has made it so today's greedy grifters don't have to sweat the niceties of putting a good face on a bad action. People like Mulvaney (and Pruitt, Zinke, Ebell, DeVos, and everyone else cut of unethical, Trumpian cloth) brazenly toss their Molotov cocktails at everything -- civil rights, a clean environment, quality public education, consumer protections, non-commercialization of public lands and waters, protections in healthcare policy -- that supports our quality of life.
How much will be enough for these defective human specimens? How much more do they need for themselves, at the expense of everyone else? Is their rapaciousness limitless? What's wrong with them that they try and they try and they try and they try, but they can't get no satisfaction?
9
This is truly pathetic. It is evident that the Republicans and their minions care nothing for American families. This is another travesty committed by the Trump administration to undermine every possible protection the American people have fought so hard to preserve such as clean air, clean water and now the Consumer Protection Board. The present administration is dismantling the very agencies they are supposed to be running and that American people care most about. This administration cares nothing for everyday working families. Appalling!
5
It's obvious that the CFPB is now out to Make America Greedy Again.
4
Beginning with Reagan: "Government is not the solution. Government is the problem."
And in order to prove their point, Republicans, since the beginning of the Reagan administration, have been doing everything they can to make Government the problem - by destroying the Government in every way they can.
The Trump administration, the Ryan House, the McConnell Senate, are just the logical conclusion of the Reagan Revolution.
They may wish he were less uncouth, less obvious. But other than that, Trump is doing exactly what every Republican has been trying to do to the Government for 37 years. Bannon wasn't an outlier either: He only said he wanted to dismantle the administrative state. Remember Grover Norquist, the Republican no new taxes guy: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
See any difference with Trump? There isn't any. What Brownback did in Kansas. What Jindal did in Louisiana. Trump is now doing to the entire country.
Who benefits? A few billionaires. For a while, anyway. Eventually, the "libertarians" will get exactly what they've always wanted: The Ungoverned States of America, just like these other fun places to live:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-ungoverned-world/
You'll be free to do anything you want. Unless someone else does it to you first.
Don't vote in November. You'll just spoil the fun.
7
The evilness of this administration knows no bounds.
You gotta wonder, is it simply that these people are pre-disposed to believe that the poor should suffer so the rich can prosper, or is there some psychological belief that the poor deserve their plight and should be humiliated in the process?
8
We put the founder of Trump University in the White House. Enough said.
10
The CFPB is suffering from an endless "whack" job by Comrade Trump & Thugs Inc. Ironically, mostly"red state" residents had rightfully benefited from the hard work of CFPB.
The returns to the victims of fraud were exponentially justifiable and served as deterrents.
Those who were so willingly suckered in by Comrade Trump will suffer financially, in the many years to come as will their children & grandchildren.
It is always unwise, and dangerous to adopt willful ignorance as an excuse to vote for a dangerously criminal, inherently dishonest, and pathologically narcissistic candidate. Ignorance is never blissful. Instead, ignorance is deadly dangerous.
Comrade Trump's vanity & propensity to hate is ruining the future for those who bought his ticket to ride. Sadly, he sold you a one way ticket to economic ruin.
5
I often wonder what goes through the mind of the everyday GOP/Conservative voter when rural hospitals close, environmental issues affect them, or some preventable calamity arises.
4
Mulvaney is acting as Trump's hitman against every kind of institutional restraint on a presidency out of control and already veering into illegality. Destroying the CPB is part of the plan, just as is the under-the-radar attack on the civil service generally. Any institution within the US government that has any possibility of halting Trump's obscenely reckless authoritarian goal is the target now.
5
Congress:
"Donald Trump is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life,' and even now I feel that way - this minute. And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, something tells me it's not true. It's just not true. It isn't as if Trump's hard to like. He's impossible to like. In fact, he's probably one of the most repulsive human beings I've ever known in my whole - all of my life."
—The Manchurian Candidate
3
Why? Because trump also wants to crush the middle class and working poor, by getting rid of protections and enriching the wealthy. Business' ethics is an oxymoron in trumps America!
3
No, he does not actually want to crush them. He just wants to own the world; and, if they get crushed for standing in his way... well, that's their problem.
3
Mick Mulvaney is a heartless creature, probably a vampire who feeds on the misery of those less fortunate than him. He has turned the Consumer Financial Protection Agency into a loan sharks and financial scamsters protection racket in less than 2 years. He destroyed probably the only really good thing to come out of Dodd Frank. Pathetic. Anybody have a wooden stake handy?
5
Yet another sad example of how kleptocracy in the highest halls of government undermines government of the People, by the People and for the People. The current adminitration is doing much wrong, and very little right, to help average consumers.
4
70,000 Americans in three States voted for this to harpoon the rest of us. Let us hope they are happy now.
It will be a great day for America when Mick Mulvaney is fired. He is up to no good. A corrupt weasel of a man. Obsessed with hurting people who are struggling financially. He would definitely steal candy from a baby and give it to a Billionaire.
3
Mick Mulvaney should be, and hopefully will be, thrown in jail for taking bribes from the payday loan industry.
5
Since it now seems to be ok to operate from ‘deeply held beliefs’ here are a few, offered for the Readers’ consideration, in response to the instant op-ed:
• The present administration is the most corrupt in modern American history. Corruption means ‘stealing from the People’.
• The ‘president’ and his ‘cabinet’ are a disgusting collection of thieves, liars, grifters, and fools. They are the pride of the Devil.
• The Republican Party is presiding over the driving of the country into a ditch, as it has done several times in the past. This one could be a very deep ditch.
• Any eligible voter who votes for a Republican in any election, richly deserves the above three points. Not voting counts as voting for a Republican.
If you agree tell everyone you know. If not, well, keep counting your money and don’t complain.
3
The Koch brothers in keeping with their John Birch society beliefs don't want no stinking consumer protection bureau.
6
Its like an alien parasite has infected the bureau, destroying it from the inside. A zombie apocalypse?
1
Like Well's Fargo, the CPFB is simply "reestablishing" themselves. And all those people who had money stolen from them by Wells? Loosers. Actually double loosers because the fees that Well's charges their "customers" are also helping fund Well's expensive national advertising "reestablishment" campaign.
So not to like about "winning" with Wells, Mulvaney, and Don the Con? Just keep singing the National Anthem, shut up, and you'll be fine.
This administration is about winning.
5
And the destruction of America continues. How is any of this acceptable. Every Trumpy should read this instead of being glued to Fox News. Unfortunately they won't.
4
If all sane voters do not show up to vote it will get significantly worse. The Trump lackeys are incompetent and toadys to the wealthy. The irony is how badly Trump voters will be hurt by finance industries who take advantage of them when there is no one there to hold those industries accountable.
2
>> Why Did the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Fire Us? <<
Because it was a thoroughly corrupt, unconstitutional office bullied through by the Obama admin and needed to be closed down for the good of the nation. It had a record of doing precisely the opposite of what it claimed: Hurting consumers, persecuting creditors, and acting like self-righteous, authoritarian dictating twerps.
2
Wow, name one thing the CFPB did that hurt consumers, just one. And since when is fighting fraud self-righteous. So you are pro fraud and all for business criminals robbing consumers.
9
I know we're in middle-school politics land where anything your guy says goes, but gosh this is insulting. You can't just make assertions like this (at least to this audience) and expect to be taken seriously. People here have some context.
9
The CFPB did not fire you Corrupt, self-dealing Mick Mulvaney did it, as he follows tRump's instructions to dismantle the United States government, and throw the entire country into chaos. They are all agents of Russia. PAY ATTENTION! Vote them out!
7
“Why fire volunteer advisers to an agency that is supposed to stand up for American families and until recently worked hard to do so?”
Possibly you signed an “Oath of Loyalty” to the People not the Administration and its special interests.
We must find a way to hold self-interested and self-enriching Politicians and their staffers, from both parties, personally liable, responsible and accountable for the lies they have told US, their gross mismanagement of our county, our $21T and growing national debt (106% of GDP), and approximately 80T in future, unfunded liabilities jeopardizing our economic and national security, while benefiting themselves, their party, and special interest donors.
http://www.usdebtforum.com
4
Money, This explains everything in the Trump administration.
4
"If you are a lobbyist who never gave us money, I did not talk to you. If you are a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you"
-Mike Mulvaney 2018
A tea party founding member. What else would one expect from another swamp creature like this. If he could he'd abolish the Bureau and pocket the savings. He and Pruitt are one of a kind.
3
It's a potent weapon for whomever is in power. A potent threat to whomever is out of power. Just like the Sherman Act, it should never have been created.
Because we are living in Evil Times.
1
Trump stormtroopers, such as Mulvaney, are the basket of deplorables cited by Mrs. Clinton. They will do anything to serve their masters at the expense of 95% of Americans. You see, they view the country as a flock of sheep waiting to be sheared. They laugh while their nation cries.
2
It's pretty clear why Trump had the Consumer Advisory Board dismantled (and make no mistake - it was Trump, not Mulvaney, who ordered the firing). Trump hates everything created under the Obama administration, and especially this particular agency, since it was the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, or as Trump calls her, "Pocahontas".
Trump cares not a whit about the American consumer, unless they can see him as their savior and give him credit/adoration and oh yeah - votes.
3
Thank you for telling us.
Without articles like this, we won't know these details.
1
Same thing that is happening at EPA, whose fundamental mission is at odds with the current administration and republicans in general. To a lesser extent, this is happening piece-meal at other departments/agencies/bureaus to parts of those organizations that are 'unliked' and to truthful information that is inconvenient to lawmakers and their puppet masters.
2
Here we go again...
How can the american people forget that our 2008 financial collapse was caused by the LACK of oversight protection of the mortgage-backed securities which were regularly assigned fraudulent ratings by our nation’s two largest rating agencies, Moody's and Standard and Poors?
And no one went to jail.
2
The advisory board was selected by Mr. Cordroy and undoubtedly rubber-stamped most of his decisions. With so many so-called "non-partisan civil servants" participating in the "resistance," why shouldn't the new director be allowed to select his own advisory committee? Why should he be saddled with one that is loyal to his predecessor, not to mention, Elizabeth Warren?
Elizabeth Warren created the Customer Protection Bureau, which had already returned $12 Nikon in fraudulently obtained funds to consumers. That's called getting things done
Trump is gutting it.
Elizabeth Warren in 2020!
2
We are due for another recession soon, perhaps by 2020, and indeed there is another financial crisis down the road with the cutting of regulations and protective measures - if they need to be fixed, fix them rather than getting rid of them - though it will take some years for the pressure to build up, say by 2026.
1
Another dirty hit job from trump on the little people. Are you worried yet trumpkins?
2
Stop whining, drain the swamp, vote!
2
Flood the Ryan and McConnell with your complaints. They are the ONLY 2 who have power to stop Trump.
Sure the Times as usual giving disgruntled employees of the deep state a forum to air their grievances. Well them being fired is good for us and the economy. How about for the change the Times provides a forum for the people who will not be destroyed by these jerks arbitrary rule making?????
They have no power to make any rules. They are an advisory board. Never hurts to understand what you're talking about.
2
If you read the article you would know they were all volunteers. The NYT editorial pages are just that- a forum for people to air their grievances- just as this area is a spot for you to air yours. The rules weren't arbitrary- they were put in place after studying the problems that helped create the greatest economic crisis of our lifetimes. I'm a conservative too- at least a fiscal one- and the economy thrives best when the middle and lower classes thrive. The CAB was designed to help them both. Happy trolling.
2
Left's lunacy is being obliterated brick by brick. Ask Warren, the Fake Populist, how she feels about it.
Starts at the top Trump does not believe in protecting consumers. He favors Darwinian economics if you have the power put the screws to the other guy. Why not give back the 12 billion paid by wilful violaters to consumers? Blame Obama.
2
If one wants to understand why Mulvaney is gutting the CFPB, one needs only to read this Warren-style, bleeding-heart, left-wing baloney written by one of her devotees. Goodbye and good riddance.
Earle, Wall Street without regulation is like Main Street without a sheriff.
3
Greed for greed’s sake is rotting everything this administration touches. The body politic is oozing with it. We’ve got the cure. VOTE every chance you’ve got. Make America WELL.
4
When I received a small check from the CFPB in 2016 I was surprised. It stated that I and many others had been overcharged by the mortgage company when I refinanced a mortgage loan. Wow! Somebody was actually looking out for my little interest. I remember thinking that this organization wouldn't last long because it was holding the banks accountable for the predators they are. I wrote a thank you note. So now those safeguards are once again being thrown to the wind by Republicans. We surely wouldn't want a government agency that looks out for its citizens would we.
12
The issue is much larger than is being reported, unfortunately. The CAPs were established for all aspects of the Real Estate industry to have input into the Rule making aspects of CFPB.
This is not how it worked out. In meetings with CFPB early on it became apparent that they were banning all mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers. When directly questioned, they claimed they had a broker on the CAP. In fact it was a real estate broker on the CAB. These were the two most regulated participants and they were ban from input. QM, MLO Comp and TRID have added over $7800 in costs to each mortgage, and its paid by the consumer.
The abundance of Regulations that came out of CFPB negatively impacted small businesses at a greater level than the larger institutions, it would have been nice to have some impact via the CABs. CFPB was required to review these Rules, but has not. Nor have they ever re-written HVCC/Appraisal Independence as required
Yes, CFPB went though the motions with regard to RFA and the SBREFA Panels. CFPB could not explain how no notes were taken, while stenographers were in the room.
Please do not believe CFPB is pure as the driven snow. After Warren left, driven out, the CFPB temperature changed radically. They are not as pure as the driven snow, like the political winds would have you desire.
If I understand your comment, you think the mortgage bankers did not have a big enough voice on the Community Advisory Boards. What appears to be happening, however, is that Mr. Mulvaney would have no consumer advocates at all on the board. It appears that the mortgage banker/brokers are well represented throughout society. They are powerful in cities and towns; they have the ear of our Congressional representatives; and they have the financial resources to hire lobbyists who make sure their interests are considered when laws are written. It is a shame that people in the business world have so little regard for consumers and the damage the housing bubble caused. As the article says, Americans lost 1/3 of their wealth when the bubble burst.
Republicans need to back off their attacks on us and our representatives like those on the CFPB.
8
Even if true, that doesn't justify letting the entire finance industry go back to being dangerously unregulated, writing their own rules, and doing whatever they want with implicit or explicit guarantees. Guarantees require regulations to maintain healthy incentives - getting guarantees and regulations right to provide the right incentives is what is called for.
1
The answer to this question is simple: because Trump cares not at all about the American people. It's all about him. And his toadies like Mulvaney will do whatever he wants.
5
Well, that's a relief for Wells Fargo and other financial ripoff businesses. It gives new perspective to their current mea culpa marketing campaign they have no obligation to honor.
Like the Anti-EPA, the Anti-CFPB will assist businesses in ripping off consumers, American consumers, with the added weight of government complicity.
Anti-EPA, Anti-CFPB, ... Anti-American trump is so pro Russia he wants to add them back into the G-7! Go figure.
8
The CFPB was created to protect the public from gouging by the corporate world. This is being gutted by a corrupt administration headed by an unscrupulous president and mismanaged by Mulvaney's hypocritical stance, totally contrary to it's mission (it is like Scott's Pruitt's E.P.A.'s mission to undercut the environment...instead of protecting it, a monumental insult to reason and common sense). How far can this farce be tolerated? Is our sense of decency and responsible behavior being gutted by a willful and vengeful brutus ignoramus at the helm? Are we supposed to take this affront lying down, or what?
1
To paraphrase what Paul Krugman wrote some months ago, the GOP has been, for along while, the party of, by and for grifters.
9
The Great Recession is over for everyone on the topside of the bailouts. Those below have struggled in misery every step of the way. The Great Recession was brought on by massive deregulation concocted by both parties to effectively bridge the abyss between Wall Street, who are ideologically more oriented to the intellectual component of the democratic party and what Clinton coined at the time, "Reinventing Government." In the late 90's, two critical pieces of legislation reversed the walls of separation in finance. They were the Gramm-Leech-Bliley Act (Republicans) with the complicity of the President's Working Group (Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Gramm, and Levitt). Within that act was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Following 9/11, the Fed dropped interest rates to near 0% and the warehouse lines found $70T in global investment to fuel what became the housing boom. In the gold rush that started with a formula born in predatory lending, the notion of the Community Reinvestment Act spawned a massive fraud that would eventually take over every level of the MBS pipeline that would torch the world in '08. It was a duplicitous deceptive timebomb engineered by Wall Street and protected by regulators starting with the SEC. It wasn't shenanigans. Shenanigans are what Seth Rognan and James Franco specialize in. This was the mother of all racketeering conspiracies that led to a $24 T transfer of wealth. There's more but I've run out of my allotment of words.
2
trump and his bad of thieves are ripping apart the democracy of this country. how the heck do we save the soul of our citizens ?
3
Caveat emptor, my fellow Americans. Caveat emptor.
1
Mulvaney and Company are just like Trump and Company.
“How can you say you love us? You don’t love us! You don’t even love yourself. You just love your money,” twelve-year-old Donald junior told his father.
These guys don't love anyone . They don't love the flag, the people of our nation those who voted to put them in office, no one, not even themselves.
Poor empty men. Poor empty people, Poor empty nation.
3
Oh my gosh the sky is falling in! We need more government to protect the people Darwin wrote about. Everyone gets free healthcare, guaranteed free income and an electric car. What happened to 'let the buyer beware'?
A fool and his money are soon parted. Financial Darwinism is fine with me.
When people have to research everything they do, to protect their health, lives, finances, it gets to be quite time consuming. Financial Darwinism is what brought us the 2007/2008 financial crisis and recession, which probably affected you along with everyone else. But, the bureau is supposed to be about more than just the finance industry - it is also about protecting the consumer from the arrogant large players in industry, which are difficult for an individual to go up against either for unfair (2 months of misinformation and charges from Verizon when trying to close a wireless account) or illegal practices (Wells Fargo).
1
Undoubtedly you're also in favor of gutting all the regulations on food safety also? Sure, let's forget about any constraints on how we grow and market lettuce — let the buyer beware, if you get salmonella it's your own fault. The government has no business protecting people.
1
There is no such thing as free healthcare. Democrats know this.
We can pay an average of $10,000 per person to private insurance.
And we have parts of the US with infant mortality rates the same as Botswana.
Or we can pay $5,500 to a government single payer and get universal coverage and the same health care or better.
So you are paying an extra $4,500 for less healthcare to make money for insurance companies and big pharma.
And with the savings, we could give a lot of people job-retraining and training in the trades.
Explain that to your children and grandchildren.
This nation was founded on the words "We the People".
Remember the people? To "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..." The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was of We the People.
However, without the need for amendment, the Republicans have redefined the constitution as:
We the Corporations of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect fleecing of the people, establish arbitration panels, insure domestic Immunity, provide for our common defense from Taxes, promote the Corporate Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Money to ourselves and our Shareholders...
Thus except like 1984's Ministry of Truth there can be no place for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Corporate States of America except to protect corporations from the people.
In this brave new Corporate States of America "keep me from taking everything I can take from you, if you can" is the basis of the laws they create so they can say "we are only following the law" when take all you have. And then belittle and shun you for their leaving you with nothing. You can be blamed. You were weak, else they couldn't have taken from you. Dog eat dog. Might makes right. A world very familiar to Trump.
4
Amen, Marie. Well said.
1
Answer:
---Republicans want to ensure that corporate America can easily rip off consumers without them knowing.
---Republicans want to ensure that corporate America can easily rip off consumers with! them knowing.
---Republicans do not care about the safety of consumers.
---Republicans do not care if consumers go bankrupt on medical bills or student loans.
It's all about sabotaging protections to humans, to pave the way to easily lining their pockets with their ill-gotten gains.
3
More of the same in an ocean of Republican corruption. This is what it's like to allow a major political party to corrupt our government, assisted by a foreign government. Trump has committed treason by accepting assistance from Russia just as the NRA has accepted Russian monies to win elections and divide the electorate with "Guns over people". Mulvaney is a pawn of a very sick president.
Get out and vote for Democrats this November and bring the CFPB back to its original mission of protecting the American people.
3
Thanks for your work and this article.
It is hard to know who wins the title of the "worst administrator" of a division of this administration, someone like Ben Carson who simply doesn't know or care, or someone like Mick Mulvaney who knows, but only cares about the rich and powerful and the furthering of the Trump administration's looting of the treasury.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
1
It's hard to disguise the disgust over the current POTUS and those actions of his cabinet and others who carry out his policy, whatever it is, depending on x factors. But this gutting of an agency whose purpose is to serve as a watchdog for consumers being gutted is just one more outrage atop many others. The question is why? It is hardly the case that consumers don't need protection whether from payday loans (see Bob Corker's fortune made here) or other bigger fish like the investment banks mentioned by one writer here.
3
Elizabeth Warren needs to tell the American people exactly what the Trump administration is doing to the CFPB. She should not do so in an impassioned manner, but rather in the same cold and calculating way that this program is being gutted.
This could best be done in an interview with Rachel Maddow if both of them would agree to avoid the passion and hysterics that often render both of them ineffective at times.
5
The CFPB has defended me on three occasions. The first two during the Obama administration and the second recently.
The first two complaints were against investment banks. I tried unsuccessfully to withdraw from IRA accounts only to be told each time that my forms were obsolete or incomplete. The investment bank was using growth in my fund to pay dividends to rich investors at their bank; they lied at first telling a story until I mentioned the 1-page summary the DFPB requires them to file.
My anger grew as they were the ones supplying the forms. In one situation, this went on from May until August. Finally, I filled out the CFPB complaint form and called the investment bank to inform them. Two days later a VP called and it was done: I transferred my money to a new account elsewhere. This situation was repeated with another account.
The 3rd encounter was regarding Amazon. They changed the delivery and added other charges on a Visa purchase. Then, they changed the computer record claiming I made a mistake. Nothing was done but Amazon did apologize.
So, you see, in the real world, on Main Street, the CFPB has made a real difference.
10
I have mixed feelings about this agency. First, someone who takes a critical view of financial transactions serving vulnerable populations can make a world of difference and do a lot of good. That was the mission of this agency.
But I also am disturbed when the constitutional order is ignored and leaves any agency adrift from the other branches of government. This agency decides (or did) it budget, submits it to the Federal Reserve and they ship the money; no checks and balances, no oversight, no request to congress where by the constitution all such power lies to initiate and approve budgets.
So good underlying purpose but under cuts the constitutional order. And this was the intent of Ms. Warren and President Obama. Make it independent. They did. And the next President decided to bring it back.
In the overall process both major goals...great consumer protection and constitutional order take big hits. The constitution needs to work so does consumer protection.
How to do that? That remains goals for the future to evolve.
2
The CFPB was operating under its lawfully enacted model. Congress passed and the president signed the legislation. That makes it constitutional unless a successful court challenge says otherwise.
What disturbs the constitutional order is the Trump administration's unlawful gutting of the agency. They are ignoring the law by, for example, firing the mandated Consumer Advisory Board. And by not enforcing the law that created it, they are operating outside the bounds of the law.
12
This is an example of Libertarianism at it's most corrupt - an example of the so - called "Free Market" at work, with nothing but contempt for "onerous" regulations and agencies tying the hands of the "makers" to help the "takers".
The largely unseen hand of Libertarians such as the Kochs, the Olins, the Mercers and others is behind so much of this administration's retrograde policies ( See Scott Pruitt's EPA dismantling ). They are now celebrating wildly.
10
But, unless the Democrats respond by grass-root recruitment of the young and a swing to the left, they are not offering a choice. Then, there is also the lack of new leadership in the Democratic party. I warned them about this once and was tossed out of their office: I won't be supporting them anytime soon.
1
While I join in your contempt for the Democratic party and will not give them one penny as long as the "centrists" (Rockefeller Republicans) are still running the show, I do hope that you will continue to vote and vote as if it matters. We all have a stake in ending the corrupt game being played by the WH and GOP, even if Perez and Schumer are still in control over at the DNC.
So Mick Mulvaney thinks he is above the Law as well as the rest of the Trump Administration? He should be sued by consumers for breaking the law. I wonder if Jeff Sessions will look into this as our Attorney General who supposedly represents the American tax payer.
This Agency has been the reason that consumers have some protection from unscrupulous lenders, banks as well as mortgage companies. From payday lenders, from usury, from any business who intentionally frauds the public.
I do have to remember, however, that the Trump Administration only answers to its donors, not the average American.
Come on Sessions, show some spine and save the Agency.
16
It it well to remember Sessions background. Like Robert Bork, Sessions is tainted by political dirty work. Sessions was the AG of Alabama. He was recruited by the GOP to eliminate potential leaders in the Democratic party. In one case, a jury was hung on a corruption trial of a Democratic leader and Sessions broke all protocol and talked them into conviction. This is why his own party wouldn't have him as a federal judge: he's tainted.
1
Thank you. I forgot about that. You are so right.
Thank you for this clear, specific article. Please continue to speak up on behalf of America's ordinary citizens, who are once again at risk from profit-minded business interests. As the midterms approach, voices such as yours are essential to remind voters what we are losing every day under this administration.
20
During his time as state representative, Mulvaney did all he could to ensure corporate profits over the well-being of SC citizens. As long as his pocket is lined with cash, he's fine with sticking it to consumers.
13
Please, please, get out there and vote. The only way to change this nightmare of a government is to vote them out of their positions.
16
The second way to change "this nightmare of a government" is to march on Washington in numbers too big to be ignored and to use our collective financial clout to boycott every corporation who funds the Trump/GOP circus.
Of course it is being gutted. It needs to be gutted. It is unconstitutional and has no oversight from Congress.
The sooner it is history, the better.
1
No, actually, it is a consumer safeguard initiated by Elizabeth Warren., a Harvard law professor.
14
How come everybody complaining about this agency is saying it is unconstitutional? Are they all drinking the same kool-aid?
So?
This was created during the Obama administration, and therefore, it has to go. That’s Trump’s M.O..
9
Is this just another example of "deregulation" or is this not just another example of these cornballs letting the American people further lose what remedies President Barack Obama and his Administration were able to provide us who had been disadvantaged suddenly and repeatedly by the previous Republican Party behavior of squandering the good standings of budgets from President Bill Clinton not bleeding red ink and the George W. Bush tenure practice of letting soon to be bankrupt financiers smoothe their damaging failures at the expense of families too poor to survive.
Of course I was never able to stomach Mick Mulvaney's inarticulate and prevaricating defenses of the Trump budget priorities...read that as forget the ones who received supplemental food benefits and butter the bread of those too fat already...the ones holding the mortgages and lives underwater. I refuse to look up from what locale in this land Mulvaney sprouted because I would undoubtedly be accused of bias, and wherever that place was he makes his squat in the swamp now.
7
It's an outrage that the Republicans and Mulvanney are gutting the CFPB.
Two years ago, I filed a complaint against Sallie Mae, when their staff were unable to locate $10,000 in student loan funds that my daughter was owed. Time was of the essence and her loan funds had not arrived at the university's financial aid department.
As someone who can always get to the bottom of a bureaucratic problem, I assumed a phone call would solve the problem. But, after 6 calls and several days, we still had no idea where the funds were and why they hadn't been disbursed.
Worse, the Sallie Mae staff were completely unhelpful and uninterested. Besides giving me the run-around repeatedly, Sallie Mae staff even commented to me, when I told them I intended to file a complaint against them that, "Sallie Mae was not regulated by any government agency anymore." They were wrong!
Unable to get help from Sallie Mae, I filed a complaint online at the CPFB website, and within 48 hours, was speaking with a CPFB staffer, who took our issue seriously. He immediately contacted high level manavement at Sallie Mae, and got the ball rolling.
I received a call every single day from the CPFB until the loan funds were disbursed to my daughter's account, and thanks to the diligent efforts of the CFPB, I did not have to withdraw funds from my own retirement account to keep my daughter in college.
The CFPB was an exemplary government agency, one that did everything possible to help us.
15
Am I the only one weary of naive rhetorical headlines in the NYT?
Of course the CFPB is being dismantled. How could anyone not have expected that? It is only one of hundreds of similar destructive actions being undertaken by Trump and his minions.
I'm not sure why the phrasing bothers me. Perhaps it leads me to fear that resistance to Trump will continue to be mired in the subjunctive, the considerate, the civilized....in sum, in defeat.
This is about losing America or not. We need action.
No holds barred, no second thoughts, no considerations that Republicans could actually be persuaded to rethink their commitment to inequality as a fundamental feature of American life.
Republicans are not redeemable. We must vote them out. Nothing else is as important. Only after that can we begin to rebuild our nation.
14
I am sure Ms. Baddour appreciates our support and understanding. It is our place to complain and correct the destructive behaviors of the morons in charge of this antagonistic dictatorship.
It is her place to explain what happened briefly and to depend on us to form solutons, even though after the fact. Sadly, these attacks of the last 500 plus days are too descriptive of the Enemy Within."
2
Many of those who voted for Trump will be among the biggest losers when the Bureau is rendered into nothing. GOOD!!!! Its about time those that voted for Trump feel the consequences of their votes. But they are probably more concerned about gun control legislation being defeated then they are about the functioning of a government agency which is SUPPOSED to protect their financial health
5
All messaging by the Democrats and progressives should always include the following:
Real people.
With real stories.
Real people who are being hurt by conservative policies and the retrenchment of protections that the CFPB has been affording average Americans.
You always have to personalize things.
Show a real human being.
People relate to the misfortune or rip off suffered by another.
If that suffering is the result of Trump's henchmen in our government this causes anger. Moves public opinion.
Change in gay rights came when we heard about Matthew Shepard… when we learned that our friends and relatives were gay…when we saw a sweet couple of women who wanted to marry but were forbidden. We looked into their faces and lives.
Those who would do harm and oppose our friends, neighbors, fellow Americans became villains in our eyes. We could not stand it.
So, too, with the nefarious deeds of those who prey on Americans, rip them off and hide behind this new tack that the financial criminals need protection.
Show the victims.
Have them come out.
Tell their personal story.
Let people know that Mulvaney supports the bad guys. How he hates Americans and loves their tormentors.
Put a face to policy always.
Including the faces of the ones who make their living robbing us.
To personalize is to message effectively.
7
Stripping every citizen of whatever financial means they have is the goal of the GOP and its corporate masters. Banks, insurance companies, chemical companies (Monsanto et al), and utilities have open season on any earnings or savings you have with the government backing them. Forget legal recourse since they have gutted the legal system and rule of law. The only option is to leave and this is a worry if a visa is tied to your Social Security as it is in many countries. Voting might not be enough if too late. Why are there no pitchforks in the streets.
8
I can't think of one honest Cabinet member of integrity, decency and a commitment to the common good. After all, just look at who their boss (our president) is.
Why should Mulvaney be any different.
We must get them all out of office and never, ever let such a travesty as Trump be a part of our history!
As an aside, can you imagine if Trump had a stroke and became disfigured and unable to talk but was still able to think his thoughts?
2
In other words, the board of advisors was fired for preventing the theft of $12 billions that Trump cronies who tried to steal it felt was rightfully theirs - and to permit Trump cronies to steal billions more.
Wonder what the Trump family cut is on this deal. Putin's oligarch's must give Putin half of everything they steal.
11
Just like all the other federal agenies (apart from defense and border control) - leave the building but eliminate the organization inside.
3
Mulvaney is just another example of a Trump appointment who is a fake, a con man, and corrupt. The Republicans in the House and Senate are bystanders and are complicit to the harms being done to the American people. Maybe this op-ed will encourage the Democrats to make some noise. This is also another example of Trump filling, not draining the swamp.
10
The Republicans in Congress are not “bystanders”, they are active participants in Trump's assault on all those citizens who have a sense of dignity and responsibility.
5
Ms. Baddour, you and the other Commission members, can still do the work you set out to do. Please create a national independent commission, make your findings public, and partner with the state attorneys generals who support your work. Please use the public sphere to hold hearings and to publicize your work. And also collaborate with other government and business watchdog groups to broadcast findings. Please don't let the lights to be shut off and to go silent.
21
The Trump administration has decided that its role is to not enforce the laws that Congress has passed an that the courts have deem Constitutional, therefore, it has ended consumer protections. It ha also refused to enforce the Affordable Care Act, and has imposed tariffs on other countries using subversive and illegal means. His EPA aids polluters, and his Department of Education is busy selling off the public schools. Mr. Trumps administration ignores the Constitution as it sees fit and at his whims. If he wants to make money using his office, or his family wants to make money using their power, so be it. The Constitution was written for other Presidents, not Mr. Trump. Until the Congress steps in to force Mr. Trump's illegal activities, he will continue this blatant over stepping and disregard for our laws.
19
This is not the era of individual rights - or at least not the era that would protect individuals. We have a lot of libertarians in office, but they want to be free to pillage rather than be free from pillage.
The CFPB was dead at birth, stifled by Republicans who believe that regulation is bad by definition, and that corporate and business rights are vastly more important than individual protections.
So we have seen people lose homes without recourse to companies that robo-filed for judgements; some did not owe what was declared in the paperwork. We have people forced into arbitration by the act of buying a product, or accepting employment, Sure, you don't need to accept the terms as long as you don't need a job. Banks are freer now to once again run amok - anything goes for short term profit,even long term misery. And people are not consumers, they are product. They are effectively the ore mined from the ground to be exploited; the source of wealth for others.
Like all things - like labor and management, for example - there must be a balance of rights and regulations in any transaction. The GOP prefers there to be no balance at all. The CFPB was DOA because of that.
20
The CPB is a victim of it's very creation and overreach by hard left progressives during the financial crisis. Rather than a watchdog agency functioning under the normal structure of government, it was intentionally designed to be beyond the influence of voters and designed to allow for unaccountable, rogue leadership. As such, it could (and did become) a rogue agency with a budget and appointed leadership that could not be challenged or fired (Richard Cordray resigned - he was not and could not have been fired by Trump). Without budget oversight and with a leader who cannot be replaced during his/her term but for malfeasance or neglect of duty, the agency was a target from day one. The only way this agency survives is if it's functions with oversight on it's work and actions like any other function of government.
5
It was set up as a fairly independent regulatory agency precisely for the reasons you mentioned, so it could not be stopped from going after rich, powerful businesses. Ever ask yourself where a payday lender borrows money to lay off to a poor person? (It's rhetorical, I know you don't think) They borrow from the same mega banks that fought tooth and nail to undermine Dodd-Frank. My biggest disappointment is that the big banks weren't allowed to fail and we start all over. I also think you over state the dictatorial power of the agency head, especially since the agency has been taken over and destroyed in 12 months or so. If and when you get scammed by the financial system cretans call a banker, don't call the Agency designed to help you. It won't be there.
16
I'll gladly accept your share of the $12 billion dollars the Commission successfully returned to taxpayers.
4
Oddly, the unaccountable tyranny here, clearly evident through the mechanism of misusing power and authority; is working in behalf of fraud and abuse - not in behalf of consumers.
Pretzel logic of this sort is effectively dismantling our Constitutional Republic - and our most precious posession: Representative Democracy.
1
Add the Consumer Protection Bureau to the list of organizations that Trump has doublespoken into dystopian reality.
I apologize for being flippant, but is anyone surprised?
22
'Because greed it's not going anywhere.
They should put that on a billboard in Times Square
It could say "The Great Depression is over my friends."'
4
It is easier for entrepreneurs to succeed when government agencies do not hinder them. One man's unscrupulous car title lender is another man's creative businessman who finds a new way to make money. It depends on whether government is going to serve the winners or the losers.
3
By your reasoning, for-profit debtors prison should be the next big thing. . .
3
So, anything goes? Even libertarians take a stand against fraud.
1
Sad. Cynical. Void.
1
What happens to an administrator like Mulvaney who breaks the law in administering his organization, as described in this essay? Nothing? Is that democracy?
39
It's corruption.
1
One of my friends was angry and officially complained to this Federal agency, CFPB, about a Canadian origin bank, operating in USA, BMO-Harris, regarding his home mortgage loan practices, mainly related to PMI.
Now I'm less hopeful that the agency would serve much justice to American consumers like him and many of us, who are bound to feel cheated by various banks and other financial companies. It's more frustrating considering more deregulation of Banks and other financial institutions.
13
Smaller government means fewer checks and balances, regulations and protections. 90% of Americans don’t benefit from these policies..stop voting for people that want to dismantle your institutions.
Just vote, participate and stop this madness.
65
"Just vote, participate and stop this madness."
Yes, and it is about time that the United States stopped holding elections on TUESDAYS!! Over here in Germany, elections are held on Sundays, when stores are closed and most people can get to the polls. And for those who cannot (restaurant workers, hospital employees, taxi drivers, etc.), voting by mail is very easy. In fact, they even send registered voters a ballot ahead of time, which people can either fill out and drop in the box in persons on voting day or send in by mail. None of this nonsense of voters (in certain districts, of course!) waiting in line for hours to cast their ballots! The American system is simply insane--and very much designed to keep people from voting.
1
To those who read this and are concerned, I offer one word of advice: Vote.
122
Changing Congress is how we start to fix this mess.
Vote Democratic on Nov. 6th.
Sorry OBrien, Americans can't read, and most certainly don't vote.
Let me offer a few more words:
Read, research, write, call, canvas, advocate, protest, march, engage in nonviolent, creative direct action, donate...
Then vote!
1
Why aren't you screaming about this instead of simply reporting this.
We have to scream!!!! The republicans scream over the values they represent which only serve few people.
Why aren't we (the democrats) screaming about this.
We (the democrats) are letting them get away with this. We are not doing what we have to do to stop this.
We are responsible for this tragedy unless we have( democratic) leaders to help us know how to combat this assault on our values.
Where are our (democrats) leaders who have a voice? We only have soft voices that hope we can change this slow movement towards soft oligarchy.
Vote they say(the democrats)... It's not enough. They are "grinding us down".
We should take ownership of this outrage,
We need leaders who have the time, resources and responsibility to lead us to resolve this attack on what we have worked so hard to accomplish......a country where we can feel safe and proud of all these years that we have attempted to treat human beings as human beings.
44
This problem was solved by FDR with the New Deal. He passed many laws to empower workers, legalizing Unions and requiring that corporations bargain with them. There were no bank bailouts and considerable prosecutions. The government hired workers and created the CCC, after the war they passed the GI Bill that raised many workers into the middle class. Taxes were progressive and the inheritance tax was very high to prevent the accumulation of huge amounts of money. Banks and the financial sector were heavily regulated. We got 70 good years out of it until the New Deal was dismantled. New Deal policies still work in Northern Europe. Policy matters. Don't just vote Democrat, vote Progressive. Elizabeth Warren cares about fairness and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bernie is a New Deal Democrat of the old school.
13
Where are they u ask? Glad u asked. In the same line, collecting checks from the financial industry that fought even the smallest regulation on their ability to destroy working families.
3
You can scream as loud as you want on MSM, but you won't be heard.
Keep speaking out ... you will be heard But see if you can get your message to the small town newspapers thru out the country that really need to hear and see the results of the administrations action towards your lawful recommendations. Again thanks for speaking
34
One way for us to help is to pay for rural libraries and schools to have NY Times subscriptions and to also donate our books there.
1
see if you can get your message via the AP wire which small town papers pick up.
Also, it wd be great if you cd ask Oprah to interview you and/or introduce you to the stupid Republicans who support Trump...perhaps Gayle? Anyone who is in a power position of these stupid Evangelical Trumpers.
2
Small towns no longer have locally owned newspapers. They are owned by conglomerates who dictate what will be published. The local reports can only report on traffic and obits.
1
The author asks why did the CFPB (Mulvaney) fire us (the Advisory Board).
Because you got it backwards. You were protecting consumers from predatory corporations, instead of protecting predatory corporations from victimized consumers.
Mick was just following instructions from his owners: the Corporate Financial Parasites Bureau.
105
Exactly right, Deb, the U.S. is now living in Orwell's nightmare world, where up is down and down is up and the truth is whatever Big Brother says it is. And if he decides on the next day that something else is true, then all of his sycophants go along with it.
The Environmental Protection Agency is now charged with destroying the environment. The Consumer Protection Agency with protecting banks and payday lenders. The Department of Education Secretary wants to privatize public schools and will no longer be pursuing fraudulent for-profit universities. The Department of the Interior is busy opening up America's vast national parks and wildlife treasures to mining and drilling companies. The head of Housing and Urban Development does not believe in the concept of public housing. And the list goes on and on.... It's mind-boggling.
2
Now the ordinary citizen sees that the destruction of the EPA takes away our clean air and clean water, and the destruction of the CFPB takes away our financial protection.
39
Unfortunately, the "ordinary citizen" is listening to Fox News and hears Scott Pruitt say, as he announces massive cuts in funding for the EPA, particularly the enforcement reimbursement to Justice for prosecution, "“I really believe that at the end of eight years, we’re going to have better air quality, we’re going to have better water quality.” So there you have it. We have arrived at 1984.
Solution? VOTE THEM OUT! It's all about turnout. In CA, only 22% of eligible voters bothered to show up at the polls. Friends can't let friends NOT VOTE!
3
As I just posted to Dr.Krugman's column a short time ago, we now have a government of scoundrels called Republicans. dishonesty is their creed.
Protecting the public from their unscrupulous friends is their purpose in life, it pays them well.
This is the ideology of the libertarian, it is your own fault if you let these thieves and GOP pick pockets steal from you. Of course you can pursue them in court as if the average American can afford the costs of such. They have taken a lesson from Donald1 the Mad President. Swindle an employee or small contractor, and make them sue you for relief while your workers wait for their paychecks.
Mulvany is the swindler in chief here, typical republican mentality, a classic example of the today's GOP. Notice you do not hear any GOP legislators calling him out, he is one of them, they are complicit in cheating the public, it follows their leaders example.
Corruption is endemic in the GOP., morally and financially.
87
Haha, Mr. Underwood: "Donald1 the Mad President." Kinda has a nice ring to it, if historians some day are looking for an appropriate appellation for Trump!
The sad thing is, most monarchies start out with fairly "normal" monarchs and then descend over generations into lunacy. Leave it to America (we always have to be different) to start off with a completely incompetent maniac!
2
The current administration sees the public as nothing more than targets to make a buck off of in a free market. Unless of course that “free market” isn’t going the way they want it to go. Then it becomes the public’s responsibility to bail out the profit makers, whether it’s big banks or the coal industry. Vote them out in November and send them packing.
58
It's not a "free market". A free market cannot exist where some companies dominate it. That flies in the face of market freedom. Adam Smith knew this and warned about it.
9
Make Corporate Corruption Great Again
Trump-GOP 2018
You really have to be either a thief, an aspiring thief or a complete sucker to support the Republican Party whose sole intent is to defraud America and Americans.
100
Thank you for doing your best for us.
If we can't get this administration out and fast, we are over.
54
Easy. It's much easier to scam without any regulations, or enforcement.
Buyer REALLY Beware.
72
And so it goes. Government of the Monied, by the Monied, for the Monied. RIP republican democracy.
15
You all were fired because you were protecting the economic interests of the majority of American consumers pursuant to the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency’s new acting director is obviously a banking industry sympathizer who is committed to rolling back the progressive measures implemented to benefit consumers during the liberal ex-director’s tenure. The acting director’s wealthy banking industry friends are not interested in hearing any additional voices they do not control. Sadly, this is the America we live in now. It has become an undemocratic plutonomy. The acting director’s efforts to curb the agency’s mission represents one of the latest examples of regulatory capture we have seen in Washington. You all should contact every Democratic candidate standing for federal and state election this year and tell this story. We should make Democrats earn the support of the majority of American consumers in the middle and lower working classes by forcing them to make a choice between the empowerment of consumers or the empowerment of banks. Kudos to the last version of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Advisory Board. You gals and guys obviously did a great job.
41
The current leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau knows its job in this administration. It is simply to render the bureau ineffective, to stop all efforts to protect consumers. The only remedy is simple and clear:
VOTE!
46
Once the bureau is render totally ineffective, the GOP will point to it and say "We told you government agencies are unable to function and only steal your taxes." All said while swinging the axe.
What Ms Baddour describes is the ugly face of reactionary politics, rooted in an ideal of the social order that has historically been alien to America. That is why they used to call it the New World. But reaction has come to our shores; we have proved no exception to its ugliness.
For consolation, I note that Ms Baddour studied at a public policy school named for Lyndon Baines Johnson, a man whose social vision was the opposite of reaction. May we honor his memory and pray for our country.
25
Pray? How about vote? 80% of Californians could not be bothered to exercise the privledge that citizens of other countries die for. Yes I’ve heard all the excuses: kids, jobs, stress, bla bla bla. If there is time to watch the playoffs, goof around on social media, and watch TV, there is time to vote. CA has permanent mail in voting; you don’t even have to leave the house. I understand that folks may have an accident, illness or a new baby...an overwhelming situation. But lack of education (highly correlated w/ nonvoters) is not always a valid excuse. Neither of my parents went to college, or could do research on the internet. Dad was a garbage man born in Italy. Mom was a mom. Both of them voted in every election and so did their friends (mostly naturalized citizens.) Nonvoters should not whine to this Californian with excuses for laziness and self-indulgent apathy unless they want a lecture about civic responsibility, adult behavior & character. I am grateful to the author of the article for demonstrating all three attributes.
1
Republicans just don’t care. Even their philosophical arguments regarding oversight - which have constitutional merit - are eviscerated by their dogged commitment to ensure that the middle class gets taken advantage of.
14
As a football fan, and an EPL fan to boot, this story is not at all surprising. The secrecy, audacity, and corruption of Putin’s Russia and FIFA run bone deep. Equally, so does an Englishman’s inherent belief in a fair system that would allow England to prevail and host its first World Cup in over 50 years. Call it English superiority, if you must, but England has and will always have the better football infrastructure, summer weather, and fan base to host a World Cup (Qatar in 2022, anyone?).
One parenthetical line made me wince: “(A FIFA report released last year cleared the [Russian] bid team of any wrongdoing.)”. Clearly, FIFA and Russia are doing just fine, despite the DOJ’s best efforts and the world’s condemnation.
4
Question: Why fire volunteer advisers to an agency that is supposed to stand up for American families and until recently worked hard to do so?
Answer: To dismantle it while pretending it is still standing up for American families.
That is the MO of this administration-- JPMAGA: Just Pretending to Make America Great Again.
64
Trump has effectively created a Swamp Protection Agency, protecting corrupt businesses from the consumers.
28
From its creation in 2011 until 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has curtailed abusive debt collection practices, reformed mortgage lending, publicized and investigated hundreds of thousands of complaints from aggrieved customers of financial institutions, and extracted nearly $12 billion for 29 million American citizens in refunds and canceled debts.
This type of economic justice for average Americans is an UNACCEPTABLE OUTRAGE to Republican Robber Barons and Reverse Robin Hoods whose reason for being is economic exploitation and vulture capitalism.
In fact, Greed Over People demands zero regulation so corporations can extract every last dollar out of average Americans legally or illegally.
Sensible regulation has no business in the Grand Old Profit party.
"Drop dead, America...your money is OUR money !"
GOP 2018
157
Now, now. Paul Ryan pointed out in his now famous tweet that the Republicans ARE looking out for the little guy as evidenced, for example, by the massive tax cut:
"A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week... the said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for a year".
So there you have it. As Marie Antoinette reportedly said "Let them eat Costco Memberships".
Meanwhile current estimates of the effect of the tax cuts on Corporate America show: 4% of workers got wage increases; bonuses and increases are pegged at $6.5 billion; stock buybacks total $238 billion (and are running at $4.8 billion per day). I'd say that's a fair deal: $1.50 a week for the school secretary and $4.8 billion a day for the Oligarchy.
Want to make a change and stop this? One word: VOTE!
26
Vote Progressive. Democrats lost to Trump. The Dems threw their constituency of workers under the bus years ago. Elizabeth Warren created the Consumer Protection Bureau that is being destroyed. Bernie Sanders is for Medicare for All as part of a New New Deal. Vote Progressive.
If you owe money, how is any attempt to collect it “abusive”? That someone should have to pursue you to make good on a debt is shameful.
1
It is painfully obvious that Republicans have no interest in serving average Americans. They opposed the creation of the CFPB, all the while claiming that they were concerned about its structure. They have said and done nothing since then to make us believe they want to address consumer issues. Their moves to overturn various consumer protections just confirm their lack of interest. It is as if they replaced the 'Consumer' in CFPB with 'Corporate,' and they have made clear their preference for helping corporations over people.
46
Thank you, Ms. Baddour, for yet more devastating evidence of how the Trump administration is so systematically stripping rights and protections in the domains that most matter - health, safety, housing, taxes, education, environment, banking, speech - by silencing the people it claims to represent - in order to further line the pockets of the rich.
68
I know I'm disheartened to see the rules for predation on consumers loosened. I agree with Mr Luettgen that the regulatory process is too cumbersome and time-consuming. Capital investment is long lead-time and the paperwork presents too many unforeseen delays. But too many checks on corporate behavior have already been removed and this looks like one more stroke of the axe. Another low hanging limb trimmed from the tree of captive consumerism, a little less shade.
15
Glass Seagall was short and sweet: Investment banks and Savings and Loan banks are separate kinds of banks. Savings and loan banks have government insured savings and may not invest, investment banks do not have government insured savings. No bailouts for gambling in other words.
Dodd-Frank was written by bank lobbyists and the banks themselves. Big banks are supposed to provide instructions for how to dismantle them if they fail. Hundreds and hundreds of pages and nobody is sure it all works. The hallmark of deliberately ineffective.
4
Mulvaney's attitude is part and parcel of the GOP disdain for the average American. From what I've seen in the last few decades, the average American means very little to the GOP. We're here to be courted for votes, lied to on a regular basis, cheated by businesses, and understand that our lives mean nothing. Unscrupulousness is, as far as the GOP is concerned, a wonderful quality for businessmen and women to have. Cheating the public is fine. If they are caught a small adjustment in the law will take care of it.
This is what we get when we put the GOP in control of things. They are not conservatives. They do not care about saving what works, updating what doesn't, and being careful about it. If something benefits them or their rich donors it's a done deal. It's why we have a lousy social safety net, no real worker protections, and a decreasing number of consumer protections even though businesses will not police themselves.
America is now a pay to play nation. If you can't pay, don't have the right contacts, aren't the right age, don't have the right skin color, you can forget about being considered part of the country that the GOP cares about.
GOP = Greedy Obsequious Prattlers who, when their rich donors say jump they ask how high or to be pointed to the cliff.
119
Thank goodness for your honest summation, hen3ry. Yes, they are not conservatives. Repeat: they do not conserve.
12
Mulvaney’s claim that this action was taken to save money is nonsense, since the CFPB is not funded by congress, but is rather funded by the Federal Reserve. Not one tax dollar is being saved by this action
190
Mick Mulvaney also claimed that campaign contributions he received from payday lenders and other businesses as a congressman posed no conflicts of interest.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/12/04/mick-mulvaney-payday-len...
18
Of course the claim is nonsense.
This is a VOLUNTEER board.
These people aren’t being paid.
They are offering free advice based on years of experience helping consumers fight against unscrupulous lenders.
There is no excuse for what is being done here other than to piece by piece dismantle consumer protections.
21
Dennis,
He didn't say "Who's money" he was saving.
It's not yours and mine he was paid to worry about.
3
Republicans stand for big business and gutting of CFPB is no surprise. However, we do deserve an explanation of how actions of bureau had bad impact of economy that it needs to be gutted. In order for stable policies we need middle ground policies that both parties agree. Otherwise, one party will institute and other party will dismantle. But, in this loud world that is too much to ask.
Not sure who at fault, people (not rewarding party that set good policies for them), or weak democrats (could not sell their good policies).
12
"In order for stable policies we need middle ground policies that both parties agree. Otherwise, one party will institute and other party will dismantle."
Advocating for the "middle ground" is a rhetorical ploy used to quell opposition and win converts to outrageous acts of corruption and pilfering we are witnessing. It presupposes at least some intersection of the opposing views and policy goals, and, it assumes a level of good faith and trust.
Absolutely none of that exists in the GOP, nor has it for decades. They are dismantling our government and carting off the spoils. It is very reminiscent of the collapse of the USSR into oligarchy. Putin is, after all, Trump's hero.There is no middle ground.
52
People like Democratic policies when they find out about them. But the GOP drowns policies in rants about irrelevancies like peering into bedrooms.
9
"The Great Recession may be over, but families are still losing their homes to foreclosure. They are still losing their cars to unscrupulous auto title lenders. The dangerous mortgage loans that helped set off the Great Recession are beginning to reappear. "
We need much more attention to this in the press, and less to Giuliani and Trump tweets.
186
Well, one answer is that CFPB had become the spear-head of an excessively aggressive partisan liberal minority, and had failed abysmally at engaging the minimal Republican support necessary to remain effective as an arm of the U.S. government, and indeed remain extant under new political realities. It could be because we don’t dictate behavior in America by a rogue regulatory agency that hides behind the skirts of the Fed and isn’t answerable in any meaningful way to the president OR to Congress. It could also be that enough Americans were offended that such a regulatory agency didn’t stick to its knitting by telling business what it may NOT do, but presumed to tell business precisely how it must conduct its operations.
Likely it’s for ALL those reasons.
But you’re in good company. With the repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate, the likelihood that ObamaCare can survive strategically has dropped into the cellar: because minimally sufficient Republican support never was obtained before ramming it (actually, it received ZERO support). Dodd-Frank generally is being dismembered as well, not just by emasculating CFPB, but incrementally in its other components, as well.
Ideological excess 2009-2010, and in the case of CFPB during the remaining years of the Obama administration, is fast relegating the Obama legacy to getting us past the race-line in the presidency, hardly a trivial accomplishment but hardly historically transformative beyond that, either.
3
Richard,
Ideological excess, says the Pot.
Another mask for disingenuous postings. Spin and alternative facts.
Not only was the ACA based upon a Rightwing think tank, it was debated and negotiated for 2yrs. Republicans added 188 amendments to the plan. Then, yes, they voted NO on everything after pretending to negotiate in good faith. Wasting time and making a bill to help ALL Americans worse.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/21/us/health-care-amendments...
Trumps finagling with the ACA purse strings will hurt, kill and disenfranchise many Americans. But you and the GOP couldn't care less. This is now TrumpCare.
Disingenuous, and spin.
Nothing to be proud of.
12
All those progressive dreams … made dust; and largely for a failure of bipartisan compromise and moderation. For liberals, this must be disheartening indeed.
Now, admittedly, Republicans over the past 17 months haven’t intensely pursued bipartisanship, either, a large part of that their fault but a material part the fault of liberal excessives who founded #TheResistance. However, the failings arising out of THAT mulishness, if there are any, could be grist for comments I make here years from today. For now, the failures are liberal failures, and the behavior and stiff-necked mission of CFPB, which took as its guiding ethos that business was inherently evil and must be told how it must conduct itself, represented a big part of those failures.
RIP: CFPB. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
6
Richard, the more you indulge in logorrhea, the less sense you make, and the second paragraph of your reply to yourself is a good example.
Business (like the rest of us) must indeed be told how to conduct itself. That's why we have laws, and that's why there are such things as corporate charters, laxly enforced as they are. The CFPB was created precisely to enforce rules of the road that were being violated. If norms of behavior are not enforced, the good actors in business will be competitively disadvantaged by the bad actors that take short cuts towards their bottom line; and it will be one more symptom of our descent into banana republic status.
On this subject, it's worth invoking Adam Smith's name, which was hi-jacked by the unfettered free-market crowd as their icon on the strength of one phrase about the invisible hand of the market. What they don't tell you is about his warning against businesses getting together in a "conspiracy against the public or in some other contrivance to raise prices".
Adam's Smith's healthy suspicion of business trumps your touching faith that it can conduct itself free of oversight. He had philosophical insight, whereas your "arguments" are simply assertions guided by ideology.
25
I'm confused - doesn't president trump care about working families?
50
Of course not. His constituency is the angry, particularly all those angry "fine human beings" in the alt right. He serves them by trashing working families, the working poor and working immigrants, like the ones he hires at low wages at Mar al Loco.
7
nope!
2
No.
2
Really? You have to ask ? It's for the same reason that DeVoss runs Ed, Zinke is at Interior, Carson at HUD, shall I go on ? It's because the CFPB was a child of Senator Elizabeth Warren, the one from the Obama administration that Trump can't get rid of, just call names.
As long as there's money to be made fleecing someone, the GOP will continue to make the CFPB as toothless as, say, the EPA.
175
This is the kind of event that gets the smaller headline, while the front page blazes out about his quarrels with the world and lawsuits from Stormy Daniels. The loss of the Consumer Protection Agency is another item of destruction that will allow big banks and corporations to do whatever they want. Here we go again. How dare he talk about anybody else hating the American people when he reigns disdain on our heads every day.
149
This is major news and should be a headline instead of an op-ed: scandalous neutering of an agency whose mission was to protect consumers from fraud. Write letters to local newspapers, complain to your congressional reps, but most of all, vote.
12
This headline is smaller than Stormy Daniels because it won't be click- bait for bigger profits for the NYT, and because it might not be helpful to some the existing advertisers.
3
Hear, hear! (And a nice pun on what the Clown Prince does!)