“‘The forces arrayed on the sides of this battle are incredibly uneven, as they were also during the efforts to pass Dodd-Frank,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans For Financial Reform. But she added that the Dodd-Frank fight yielded key reforms, even against long odds: ‘The fight’s not done.’”
‘It is a little hard for me to understand because Congress debated, the president signed, they (Collins and Snowe) voted for the bill that included the creation of the bureau as one of its centerpieces,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition that includes consumer and civil rights groups and labor unions. ‘The bureau’s powers are significantly restrained until it has a director in place. So it is kind of going back and trying to undo what was done.’
“A team of consumer groups warned Tuesday that lobbying by Wall Street could weaken proposed regulations designed to guard against the kind of abusive investment practices that crushed the Bethlehem Area School District in recent years. Speaking at a teleconference, representatives of the Consumer Federation of America, the AFL-CIO, Americans for Financial Reform and Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner said well-financed lobbies are working to disarm regulations initially designed to rein them in.”
“…As expected, Republican senators blocked a vote Thursday on whether to approve President Obama’s nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. …A July poll sponsored by AARP, Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending found that about 63% of Americans favored more government oversight of financial companies, and 74% favored having a single agency focus on protecting consumers from financial organizations.”
Before the vote, more than 200 organizations, led by Americans for Financial Reform, sent a letter to senators warning that the CFPB’s ability to regulate and protect consumers would be severely restricted without a director.
‘Some senators are taking the extreme step of demanding that the law be reopened and refusing to allow him an up or down vote,’ said Americans for Financial Reform Director Lisa Donner. ‘If they continue, we will urge the president to make a recess appointment.’
The Consumer Federation of America, Americans for Financial Reform, and the AFL-CIO, hosted a conference call with reporters and bloggers on Tuesday, December 6th to discuss threats to a key Dodd-Frank provision designed to protect municipalities, pensions and other vulnerable swaps market participants from predatory industry practices of the kind that just last month drove Jefferson County, Alabama to declare the nation’s largest ever municipal bankruptcy.
An overwhelming majority of Americans—Republican, Democratic, and Independent—favor strong, sensible oversight of the financial services industry, including a strong and independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the poll finds.
Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – November 25, 2011 – December 2, 2011.
The Volcker Rule and Barclays’ UK Bear Hug – Nick Dunbar
“On Nov. 3rd, I attended the inaugural BBC Today Business Lecture, given by Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays. The man who told the UK Treasury Select Committee that it was time to stop apologising for the financial crisis had been given an image makeover. …The more I thought about it, aside from the change in tone, there was not a great deal of difference between the unrepentant Diamond addressing the Treasury Committee and the contrite version lecturing the BBC. …The answer came to me last week…I was invited by the legislative counsel for Sen. Jeff Merkley, one of the architects of the original Volcker Rule bill, and… Americans for Financial Reform.”