Oligarchs Dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

I lack the expertise to explain the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Suffice it to say that the attacks on it from the banking interests, and members of Congress swayed by their lobbyists, have been unrelenting since it was created in response to the Great Recession. As you may recall, that Recession was brought on by financial entities deemed “too big to fail.” The resulting lax regulatory regime created an environment in which financial institutions were encouraged to take on huge financial risks, to reap the rewards while those bets paid off, but to expect government bailouts when those risks turned out to be calamitous losers. We all paid, first when our investments evaporated and then when we the taxpayers had to foot the bill to bail out the banks.

Fearing a President more inclined to protect bankers than bank customers, the people who designed the CFPB sought to insulate it from executive whim. SCOTUS took a cleaver in the form of the highly questionable unitary executive theory to such schemes in a series of decisions culminating in Seila Law v. CFPB.  Ever since then, the banking interests have tried to use the supposed constitutional infirmities of the CFPB to detract attention from its vital work, returning money that financial institutions bilked from unwary consumers of financial services. 

I would direct you to CFPB’s website to learn more, but this is what it currently looks like:

Instead, I direct you to Erin Witte’s recent post on the Consumer Federation of America’s site, and I note the irony that the banking interests have now effectively thanked American taxpayers for the bailout by backing an administration that will eliminate the regulations working to prevent the next Great Recession. 

It will come.