Consumer Protection Only Wall Street Could Love

When it comes to finding someone to head the Financial Consumer Protection Bureau that opened its doors this week, the Republicans remind me of that Groucho Marx bit: “Whoever it is, we’re against them.”

The Republicans have a pretty straightforward position:  they’ve made it clear they’ll only be satisfied with one kind of financial consumer protection agency: one that’s dead, buried and incapable of causing the big banks any trouble.

Meanwhile, President Obama is caught between his promises to create a powerful new agency to rein in Wall Street and his need to raise $1 billion to fuel his reelection campaign.

So the president dissd the highly articulate Elizabeth Warren, who came up with the idea for the new agency and who has been a down-to-earth, no-nonsense advocate for consumers for decades, in favor of the former Ohio attorney general, Richard Cordray.

Republicans don’t like Cordray, who enjoys a decent enough reputation any more than they liked Warren. Obama could have waged a political popular fight in favor of Warren and real protection but he didn’t.

How come? On the one hand President Obama would prefer not like to see one of the signature achievements of his financial reform effort strangled in its crib.

On the other hand Wall Street doesn’t like even the whiff of anybody   implying that the bankers might take advantage of their customers let alone anybody actually trying to do something about it.

Based on his weak negotiating efforts so far, Obama and the Democrats are perfectly capable of accepting some form of the proposal offered by Sen. Jim Moran, R- Kansas, which would turn the real power over the CFPB to a committee, preserving consumer protection in name only. Obama and the Democrats can run on that with the same gusto the president is pretending that the faux financial reform actually reined the Wall Street fraud and excess that led to the 2008 financial collapse and bailout.

Democrats and Republicans are competing hard, less for the affections of voters and more for the mountains of cash beckoning to them from Wall Street and corporate coffers.

In calculating whether to keep their promise to protect consumers or whether to bend to Wall Street, the president and the Democrats know that the Democratic voters have no other place to go right now; they are unlikely to swing to the “We’re against it” party even as much as Obama disappoints them

But Obama and the Democrats know Wall Street, which was generous to them in 2008, does have a choice. The Republicans are wooing Wall Street hard, though the Republicans’ knuckleheaded stance on the debt ceiling makes them look more like surly juvenile delinquents than a party with an interest in actually governing.

Time will tell whether the Democrats or the Republicans will actually allow the new agency to do real consumer protection or if they will thwart the majority’s will in favor of Wall Street’s.

 

 

Around the Web / Consumer Financial Protection Agency / Martin Column / President Barack Obama - 07/23/2011

Around the Web: Landmark or Pit Stop?

I understand why people feel the need to tout the historical significance of the financial reform package that passed the conference committee. The president needs it politically and those who support him want to give him credit for getting anything at all in the face of the onslaught of bank lobbyists. Lots of folks worked very hard against tremendous odds to get something passed.

But I think a more sober analysis shows that what’s been achieved is pretty modest. It hands over many crucial details to the same regulators who oversaw our financial debacle.

Summing up, Bloomberg reports: “Legislation to overhaul financial regulation will help curb risk-taking and boost capital buffers. What it won’t do is fundamentally reshape Wall Street’s biggest banks or prevent another crisis, analysts said.”

Zach Carter characterizes it as a good first step. The Roosevelt Institute’s Robert Johnson writes: “This first round was not the whole fight. It was the wake-up call and the beginning of the fight. Rest up and get ready. There is so much more to do.”

The question is when we’ll get the chance to take the additional steps that are needed. The public is skeptical that the new rules will prevent another crisis, according to this AP poll. The Big Picture’s Barry Ritholtz grades the various aspects of the reform effort. Overall grade? C-. Top marks go to the new minimum mortgage underwriting standards. But legislators get failing grades for leaving four critical issues on the table: “to big to fail banks,” bank leverage, credit rating agencies and corporate pay.

Ritholtz saves some of his harshest evaluation for the proposal to house the new consumer protection agency inside the Federal Reserve, which he finds “beyond idiotic.”

Around the Web / Executive Pay / Financial Reform Legislation / Martin Column - 06/25/2010

Around the Web: Tweak Show

Rather than providing a terrifying wakeup call to reshape our financial system, the economic meltdown turned out to be a boon to bank lobbyists.

The fight for financial reform looks like it will be a long war.

Who won the first battle? The too-big-to-fail bankers, who spared no expense in protecting their interests. Now they’re stronger than ever, and the job of regulating them has largely been turned over to the same regulators who failed to protect the country from the recent debacle.

House and Senate conferees are still haggling over the final details. In the latest “compromise” to emerge, Rep. Barney Frank has given up fighting for an independent consumer financial protection agency, agreeing with the Senate proposal to house consumer protection within the Federal Reserve.

It hasn’t helped that the man who was supposed to lead the charge  – President Obama – ­ has largely been missing in action. An independent consumer financial agency was once a linchpin of President Obama’s financial reform package. But it’s gone the way of other provisions that the big banks opposed. The president also once threatened to veto reform if it didn’t contain strong derivatives regulation, now the administration is actually working to undermine it.

One of the most articulate advocates of a stronger overhaul of the financial system isn’t waiting around to see the final bill to declare a verdict. Baseline Scenario’s Simon Johnson declares the reform effort a failure. Rather than joining with a handful of congressman and senators fighting for a more robust overhaul, Johnson concludes that the White House “punted, repeatedly, and elected instead for a veneer of superficial tweaking.”

Now the focus of financial industry lobbying will shift to the regulators, who will have the task of writing the new rules the administration and Congress balked at providing. The conference committee is televising its proceedings. It’s not a pretty picture, as when Texas Republican congressman Jeb Hensarling argued to gut some controls on bankers’ compensation out of concern that the federal government would be setting bank tellers’ pay.

If you have a strong stomach, you can view the remaining sessions here. The Democrats want the negotiations wrapped up by July 4.

Around the Web / Martin Column - 06/21/2010