Letters to Regulators: AFR Ed Fund urges the NCUA to develop a consumer compliance exam process
Letter to the NCUA urging them to prioritize consumer compliance
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In The News: Want To Make Payday Loans In States Where It’s Outlawed? Rent A Bank! (Talking Points Memo)
FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams “is doing the bidding of loan sharks who have a decades-long history of trying to get around state consumer protection rules,” Americans for Financial Reform spokesperson Carter Dougherty observed. “And now a federal regulator is helping them do it.”
News Release: AFR Cheers Introduction of Legislation Eliminating Opportunity Zone Tax Giveaway
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced groundbreaking and essential legislation to repeal the deeply flawed Opportunity Zone tax break passed as part of the 2017 tax cut legislation. In addition to the basic problems with this tax break for the wealthy, multiple media exposés have already found that the rules have been bent to include parcels that benefitted high-rolling real estate investors, including those with ties to the Trump administration.
Letters to Regulators: AFR Ed Fund sent a letter opposing proposal to exempt foreign derivative clearing organizations from registration with the CFTC.
View or download a PDF version of the full letter.
Letters to Regulators: Joint letter to the SEC urging Chairman Clayton to withdraw anti-investor guidance that would undermine independent audits of public companies.
View or download a PDF version of the letter. Consumer Federation of America AFL-CIO Better Markets Center for American Progress Americans for Financial Reform November 21, 2018 Dear Chairman Clayton: We are writing to express our grave concerns regarding PCAOB staff guidance on Rule 3526(b),
In The News: Ocasio-Cortez Explains Everything Wrong with Private Equity in Less Than a Minute (GQ)
“I wasn’t sent here to safeguard and protect profit,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a video from the hearing circulated by Americans for Financial Reform, “I was sent here to safeguard and protect people.”
In The News: Once Mulvaney’s chief of staff, payday lobbyist enjoys frequent access to his old boss (The Washington Post)
“This lobbyist is about the purest walking-and-talking evidence you could imagine of why money matters in Washington,” Linda Jun, senior policy counsel for Americans for Financial Reform
News Release: AFR Applauds Landmark Hearing on Curbing Private Equity Abuses
The hearing followed the July 18 introduction of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act Rep. Maxine Waters, the chair of the committee, highlighted that there are “too many examples of private equity firms destroying companies, and preying on hardworking Americans to maximize their profits” as she opened the hearing.
Letter to Congress: Broad Coalition Supports the Stop Wall Street Looting Act
Today, private equity and hedge fund managers take advantage of gaps in regulations to make billions of dollars by looting real-world businesses and engaging in abusive practices without any accountability. They also pay taxes at a lower rate than teachers and firefighters. The undersigned organizations support the Stop Wall Street Looting Act (S.2155 / HR 3848 ). This legislation would eliminate tax, securities and bankruptcy law carve-outs that allow these Wall Street titans to make billions at the expense of workers, communities and pensions.
Economic Policy Institute Testimony: America for Sale? An Examination of the Practices of Private Funds
In advance of tomorrow’s hearing, “America for Sale? An Examination of the Practices of Private Funds,” I am submitting written testimony in support of the “Stop Wall Street Looting Act of 2019,” a comprehensive bill aimed at stemming abusive practices employed by some private equity firms to line their pockets at the expense of workers, institutional investors, creditors, and others with stakes in the companies they acquire—and too often destroy. As I told Senator Elizabeth Warren in an earlier letter, the legislation will not hinder those private equity firms that prosper by delivering efficiency gains to underperforming companies in their portfolios. Instead, it will simply remove tax and other incentives that allow some firms to realize large gains by inflicting even larger losses on other stakeholders. This type of negative sum strategy is pursued too often in the private equity industry and requires a legislative and regulatory response.