“‘No one wants to say out loud they’re unsophisticated,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director of the Washington-based nonprofit Americans For Financial Reform, a coalition of unions and civil rights and consumer advocates.”

“The final rules on swaps dealer business conduct approved by the CFTC today represent a significant weakening of the Commission’s initial proposed rules in this area. The Dodd-Frank Act created a significant set of new protections for public entities and pension funds in the derivatives markets. These rules, unlike the initial proposal, are simply not sufficient to fully implement the Dodd-Frank protections.”

Read the letter that AFR signed onto, urging the OCC to withdraw proposed bank payday and overdraft guidance here.

Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – January 2, 2012 – January 6, 2012 (also with news from the end of 2011).
 

“In other places, it is known as a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ and ‘Tobin tax,’ named for Nobel laureate James Tobin, who proposed in the early 1970s a tax on currency conversions. …A scaled-back tax of 1% would raise more than $200 billion, according to Americans For Financial Reform.”

“Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement after Obama’s recess appointment that ‘consumers won today when President Obama defied Wall Street interests to make a recess appointment’ of Cordray. Obama, she said, ‘stood with consumers and families in making this crucial decision.’ Now that the CFPB has a director, Donner went on to say, the CFPB “finally has its full authority to protect consumers everywhere in the financial marketplace, from a Wall Street bank to a payday lender or from a mortgage company to a credit bureau or anywhere else.’”