Category Archives: AFR in the News

In the News: Hardly Workin’ (The American Prospect)

“Every legal loophole that the previous administration tried to close is now open again,” [Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform] told the Prospect. “With no meaningful oversight and accountability, there is no safety in the financial marketplace. People are on their own now.”

In the News: Why Passing the Stablecoin GENIUS Act Might Not Be So Smart (The New Yorker)

“The GENIUS Act is an important step, but it is just one of many actions that the crypto industry and its allies in the White House and Capitol Hill are taking to launch an uncontrolled experiment in unleashing crypto on the economy and the financial system,” Mark Hays, an associate director of crypto and fintech at Americans for Financial Reform, a Washington-based advocacy group, told me.

In the News: GOP targets Treasury’s risk-watching data hub (Politico)

Patrick Woodall, managing director for policy at Americans for Financial Reform, said slashing the research office would cut off “unique modeling and monitoring tools” that are critical to understanding where risk is building up in the financial system, from banks, private credit or other corners of the market.

The rhetoric is about “tightening our belts and austerity, but the reality is that the impact is not mostly budgetary,” he said. “The impact is overwhelmingly about our ability to actually monitor the financial system for growing risk that poses potentially very serious impacts on the economy.”

In the News: In this corrupt age, a new crypto law should leave no loopholes (LA Times)

Congress, its eye on a futuristic form of finance, is debating legislation that would legitimize stablecoins, a specific type of cryptocurrency linked to the U.S. dollar. But lawmakers eager to do the bidding of this new industry are ignoring the transformation of the American regulatory system and allegations of corruption in the second Trump administration.

In the News: Hailstorm leads to flood of predatory contractors (Chicago Tribune)

The Consumer Federation of America, Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) called on the nation’s insurance firms to stop underwriting oil and gas projects, along with investing in fossil-fuel companies. The groups say backing fossil-fuel companies causes consumers’ insurance premiums to grow annually.

In the News: Elon Musk and His DOGE Bro Have Cashed In on Americans’ Retirement Savings

“Public pension funds are one of the biggest sources of capital for private equity firms,” says Oscar Valdés Viera, who analyzes private equity at Americans for Financial Reform. “Workers indirectly fund private equity’s predatory practices through their pension funds. The private equity billionaires benefit from tax loopholes and giveaways that the rest of us do not get,” he says, pointing out the carried interest tax deduction, which allows private equity managers to get much of their income taxed at the lower long-term capital gains tax rate than the ordinary income tax rate.