Consumer Financial Protection Agency
The idea of creating a Consumer Financial Protection Agency struck me at first glance as probably something that was probably a good idea, but didn’t necessarily have a ton of awesome potential. It is, however, attracting some appealing adversaries. First the Financial Services Roundtable took a swing at it and now the Chamber of Commerce is getting into the action. That, to me, makes it sound like this might be a bigger deal than I was initially giving it credit for. Now the key thing is whether congress can enact this idea in a way that has some teeth.
Pat Garofalo offers some specifics:
That said, the agency will only be effective if it’s on par with the banking regulators and can keep up with financial innovation. It can’t be second tier, without enough resources or stature to do its job effectively. The administration’s plan calls for “stable, robust funding,” and giving the agency “sole rule making authority” in terms of consumer protection. We’ll see if Congress decides to grant those requests.
Is there a name for the phenomenon where a group signing up to oppose something makes you more enthusiastic about it?
24 Responses to “Consumer Financial Protection Agency”
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June 17th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
By their enemies you shall know them.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
a political fulcrum: the nature of the opposition is what gives the policy “lever”age to do its good work.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I prefer the obvious old-school: Schadenfreude
June 17th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Ultimately we get wage controls on the medical profession.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Just what we needed. More federal agencies.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Is there a name for the phenomenon where a group signing up to oppose something makes you more enthusiastic about it?
“Politics.”
June 17th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I’m reminded of the South Park episode where the “traditionalists” who wanted to keep South Park’s racist flag gained the support of the KKK. This sounds like that – if the C of C opposes it… yep, I’m probably going to be fine with it, no other policy information needed.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
… and based on the above, I’d have to call it the “Uncle Jimbo” rule.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I think that’s “partisanship”
June 17th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
May I suggest this Dean Baker’s post.
You can have 10 million agencies, but there is no point if all they do is whoring for the bankers (is that what “keep up with financial innovation” means?).
June 17th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
unprincipled partisan hackery comes to mind
June 17th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Call it the Groucho Marx principle: “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”
June 17th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I think you are thinking along the lines of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
June 17th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Its not really the enemy of my enemy. That has to do with actual people whom you distaste but ally yourself with to defeat a greater evil. Unfortunately for Yglesisas while there are many phrases one can use to quickly describe this idea there aren’t any one word terms for it. ‘Having the right enemies’ is typically the phase that is used.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
“Righteousness.”
Say the word only when a powerful wind is blowing back your locks (if you have them) and think Charlton Heston as Moses. A long staff is also helpful.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I do the same thing for California ballot initiatives. Whatever stance the Howard Jarvis Association takes, I vote the opposite (Jarvis co-wrote Prop. 13, which destroyed California).
June 17th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
BRIC/CBS
(IMF/AIE DOLLAR)
The (BRIC Sphere of Influence), Brazil, The Russian Federation, India, and the (PRC) Peoples Republic China, the German & French Axis, and the British Commonwealth all are in fact spheres of influence, must consider the establishment of an (BRIC/CBS) Co-operative Banking System, which could in theory work along side but separate from the (IMF) International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, made up of member countries representing around (90%) Ninety-Percent of global gross nation product, (80%) eighty per-cent of world trade and (66%) Sixty-Six Percent of the world’s population is based in the (AIE) with the entire monetary system based upon the (AIE) American Israeli Empire ($ dollar), setting up the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to become a Co-operative Banking System recognizing a super-reserve currency, between its members.
(BRIC/CBS/SDR)
The (IMF) International Monetary Fund participate in meetings, together, with member countries representing around (90%) Ninety-Percent of global gross nation product, (80%) eighty per-cent of world trade and (66%) Sixty-Six Percent of the world’s population. The (BRIC/CBS) members would replace the Dollar with (BRIC/CBS/SDR’s) Special Drawing Rights to become the (BRIC/CBS) recognized super-reserve currency. Operating in accordance with the essay of Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China which said the new currency would let (BRIC/CBS) governments manage their economies more efficiently because its value would not be influenced by the needs of any one of the (BRIC/CBS) nations more able to regulate the finance and tradeoff the (BRIC/CBS). A (BRIC/CBS/SDR) Super-Sovereign Reserve currency (defined as the relative worth or importance, monetary or material worth, as in commerce, the worth of something in terms of some medium of exchange, equivalent worth in money, materials or services, and so forth and so on and on), managed by a (BRIC/CBS) panel of its membership nations, in which the new (BRIC/CBS), institution which would both create and control (BRIC/CBS) liquidity, these changes in turn would significantly reduce the risks of a future crisis and enhance crisis management capability for the (BRIC/CBS) membership.
(The Geo-Culture Shock)
“He (CLINTON) told an Arab-American audience of (1,000) One-Thousand, people that the (U.S.) or (AIE/W) American Israeli Empire-West, is no longer just a black-white country, nor a country that is (DOMINATED BY) Christians (AND A POWERFUL JEWISH MINORITY), given the growing numbers of Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups here. Clinton said by (2050) the (U.S./AIE/W) will no longer have a majority of people with European heritage and that in an interdependent world “this is a very positive thing.” (Source: CHRISTINE SIMMONS, Associated Press Writer, Bill Clinton urges Americans to be mindful of the country’s growing diversity)”
The (BRIC/CBS/SDR) system must be considered, as what Bill Clinton in his statement is saying is that between the present and (2050) a mere (40) forty years which is blink of an eye in Global History, a nation of (400M) Four-Hundred Million will completely be changed, geo-socially, religiously, language, culturally and politically, all of which can be seen with the growing chasm between the two parts of the Empire. No! culture no country has ever under gone such a massive change without conflict, of some degree or other. Understand that the (AIE) has no legal STATE language or STATE religion, that there is too be a complete transformation from White-Anglo-Saxon-European-English Speaking- Judaea-Christian Culture, to a Black-African-Arabic Speaking-Islamic Culture, which can be assumed, will have serious Geo-Political, Economic, and Military ramifications. And, the nations of the (BRIC/CBS), will be insulated to a large degree from this cultural shock transformation.
TRIATHLON
June 17th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
confirmation bias
June 17th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
PORRIDGE: Pissing Off Rush Republicans Is Da Good Every time.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I believe it’s called Spite
June 18th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Roughly 20 days ago I made a bold ass prediction that Obama would declare to the Nation that Wall Street was his and fairly won. I was thinking metaphorical martial law declared and designed for the evil portions of Manhattan.
Is this it? I don’t so. I don’t think big one is coming. Bad prediction by me.
Obama reminds of some slow hustlers I have known. You are playing 9-ball against a tough but friendly opponent for nickles and dimes, and you look up two years later and you realize the guy is into your wallet for at least three grand.
And you don’t resent him for it. In fact, you keep on playing him, thinking, you are about to turn things around.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:11 am
“all the right enemies”
June 18th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
The tricky part is, one of the key ways that banking agencies identify unsafe and unsound banking practices (i.e., one of the key metrics for risk regulation) is through observations of their consumer protection law examiners. After all, there is not a bright line between risk regulation and consumer protection. To fold the consumer protection function up into a new agency will deprive the existing agencies of one of the tools they rely on to manage risk. I think it would be very good to have a single agency be responsible for ensuring consumer protection laws have teeth and are enforced, but I would very much like that agency to share (robustly) the results of its examinations with the risk regulators, perhaps even through joint examinations.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Dumb-fuckery?