“Efforts to gut Dodd-Frank would spark a big fight. Supporters of the law believe it has significantly reduced the odds of another Wall Street meltdown. Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement that it would be ‘wrongheaded and a betrayal of Trump’s campaign promises to reign in Wall Street abuses.'”
“Democrats and progressive groups have drawn a line in the sand over Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, hoping to capitalize on the successful march on Washington this past weekend to rally support for him and his agency… Roughly 500 advocacy groups across the U.S. are poised to rally their supporters if Trump fires Cordray, said Gynnie Robnett, a campaign director at Americans for Financial Reform.”
In the new political environment, it is likely that there will be a heavy emphasis on the capital formation mission of the SEC. The IAC should play a critical role in reminding the Commission that investor protection is crucial to stable and effective capital formation. …Improving financial entity disclosures is crucial if we are to improve market discipline for large financial entities and investor discipline for funds.
“Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform, a group that wants tougher regulation of Wall Street, said that the NEC and Treasury would provide the core economic policy advice to the new administration and would have a tremendous voice in future regulatory appointments. ‘Trump talked about the rigged system. [This] is a recipe for maintaining that rigged status quo,” he said.”
“‘Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s reported pick for Treasury Secretary, made himself enormously wealthy by cashing in on the country’s financial collapse,’ the liberal activist Take on Wall Street campaign said in a statement on Tuesday. ‘He purchased a bailed-out bank for pennies on the dollar and then aggressively foreclosed on tens of thousands of families.'”
“[The] question is whether Dodd-Frank will be replaced or just torn down. If Republicans create a regulatory vacuum or simply allow the banks to write their own rules, [AFR’s Marcus Stanley] said, they will have gone too far. ‘It’s obvious that Dodd-Frank is going to come under severe attack both in Congress and the regulatory agencies,’ Stanley said… [T]he first question is going to be, What do you plan to do to actually address these Wall Street abuses? If the answer is, We’re not going to do anything … then that is something we are going to fight really hard on.”
“‘Trump ran an anti-establishment campaign focused on the economy,’ said Alexis Goldstein, a senior policy analyst for progressive nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform. ‘There was a huge focus on fighting for people who were left out. It’s already a betrayal of his supporters to staff up his transition team with hedge fund managers.'”
“A crucial element fueling the rage, in my view, was this: Not one high-ranking executive at a major financial firm was held to account for the crisis of 2008… The first inkling of whether Mr. Trump is truly on the side of Main Street may emerge when his administration sets out to change Dodd-Frank… ‘Are you going to return to the situation under Bush and Clinton where Wall Street wrote its own rules in the back room?” [AFR’s Marcus] Stanley asked. ‘Or are you going to put forward something that constitutes a genuine alternative and that will prevent Wall Street from rigging the economy?’”
“While Trump bashed Wall Street throughout the campaign, the financial services industry is trying to figure out whether his victory, coupled with a GOP-led Congress, could open a path forward to easing regulations… Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, said he expected to play defense on some issues but hoped that the populist pitch made by Trump during the election ‘wasn’t just rhetoric that gets forgotten when you come to DC.'”
“While Wells Fargo has fired workers for their involvement in the scandal, many regional presidents in the community banking segment at the center of the controversy remain in their jobs… Brian Simmonds Marshall, policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, called that ‘disturbing’: ‘It’s not enough only to fire 5,000-plus front-line workers and a handful of managers… and let everything in between stay the same.'”