The Senate Banking Committee should oppose the nomination of Paul Atkins to serve as Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He is a deeply flawed nominee who supported industry-backed deregulation as a prior commissioner that led to the 2008 financial crisis.
The passage of Delaware Senate Bill 21 – the Billionaires’ Bill – endangers the retirement security of millions of families across the country. A coalition of consumer and investor groups including Public Citizen, Americans for Financial Reform, and the Consumer Federation of America opposed the legislation as did the largest retirement funds in the United States.
The House Financial Services Committee Financial Institutions Subcommittee convened a hearing today that will do little but air the grievances of the banking lobby over the highly effective work done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to prevent another financial crisis, and for the past 14 years it has diligently served the public, held financial firms accountable, cracked down on junk fees, and protected people from financial rip-offs. The vehemence of the Wall Street, Big Tech, and predatory financial industry’s attacks on the CFPB are a testament to its effectiveness in successfully standing up for people.
Trump’s illegal termination of Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the two Democratic Commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), violates a nearly century old Supreme Court precedent that prohibits the firing of FTC Commissioners over policy or political disagreements.
Taylor brings more than 30 years of experience fighting for economic and racial justice. She joins Lisa Donner in a new shared leadership structure aimed at enabling AFR to meet the challenge of the moment as billionaires wield unprecedented levels of power.
Consumer advocates decried the Senate Banking Committee’s passage today of a flawed bill – S. 919, the GENIUS Act – that would legitimize a risky class of crypto assets known as stablecoins and embed them more deeply into the banking system.
The Sycamore Partners $10 billion purchase of drugstore chain Walgreens risks disaster for workers and customers, given this private equity firm’s track record. The private equity takeover of retailers has enriched the Wall Street by extracting dividends, stripping out real estate, and charging astronomical fees that has driven many chains into bankruptcy, shuttered thousands of locations, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, and left consumers worse off than before.
Senate Republicans voted to give Elon Musk and Big Tech the ability to operate payment apps without any meaningful oversight or accountability, a step that will leave millions vulnerable to financial predators and scammers.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund published a research memo, Private Equity’s Silicon Gold Rush, analyzing private equity’s surging investments in data centers used for artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining, and cloud computing.