Consumer Protection Bureau A Disaster : Dodd/Frank?

Still more bad news for financial markets - it's like ObamaCare - "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it" as Nancy Pelosi so stated. The Dodd/Frank bill that is taking control of nearly all aspects of our financial institutions without any oversight can only be described as Orwellian in it's nature and scope. Anyone with half a brain has to know this was intended as part of the progressive agenda to slow the progress of this countries expansion and prosperity.

The progressive socialist agenda that drives Mr Obama to use the power of the presidency to reconstruct the entire country, America is unfair to the masses, income redistribution, is in the mold of old European socialist ideologies that is destroy those countries, is on display for all to see that care about our country,

Sadly, the majority of the voting public lives in a different world of cell phones, IPads and video games, who have no desire to get involved in the day to day events that will eventually effect them to the point where their very future is compromised. A tragic flaw of youth.

Little wonder then why Mr Obama won the age group, 20 to 35, by nearly 23 points. Still one has to wonder why this age group could be so unconcerned for their own well being given the impact of their ignorance on their personal success in the very near future, not the success of their kids. If they were aware at all, they would see their kids will have no future at all if we continue like we are.

Go Figure.

The Unchecked Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
February 7, 2013
Source: Diane Katz, "The CFPB in Action: Consumer Bureau Harms Those It Claims to Protect," Heritage Foundation, January 22, 2013.

In response to the bursting housing bubble, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to oversee consumer financial products and service throughout the economy. Consolidating 18 consumer laws, the CFP B was designed to have unparalleled radical powers that evade the checks and balances that apply to most regulatory agencies. The result is an agency that is undermining business investment and consumer credit, says Diane Katz, a research fellow with the Heritage Foundation.

• The CFPB become operational on July 21, 2011 but only started its activities once President Obama appointed Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray through a "recess appointment," which avoided the typical confirmation process despite the Senate being in session.
• Because the bureau operates within the Federal Reserve System, it falls under virtually no oversight in regulating the six services it has decided to regulate: debt collection, consumer reporting, prepaid cards, debt relief, consumer credit and money transmitting, check cashing and related activities.
• The statute that empowers the CFPB is incredibly vague, leaving the staff of 1,000 with a $600 million budget to interpret its meaning without any defined or fixed standards.

Katz says that the agency has replaced the rule of law with risky rules that allow examiners to determine the likelihood of harm in the future rather than any actual violation of the law. Engaging in such speculative assessment of risk has allowed the bureau to effectively bring 94 percent of the annual receipts of the entire consumer reporting sectors and 63 percent of the annual receipt of the debt collection market under its supervision.

Congress should eliminate the CFPB entirely or cut its funding. At the very minimum, Congress should define the language of the statue so the bureau does not have the ability to define its own powers.

Without reform, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will continue to assume it knows more than consumers and wreak havoc on U.S. financial markets.