Past Events
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Topics: FinTech/CryptoVirtual Town Hall: Uncovering Trump’s Crypto Corruption
On March 5th, 2026, AFR hosted a virtual town hall about the pipeline of crypto corruption, President Trump’s crypto conflicts of interest, how crypto industry backed legislation could expose us all to crypto’s dangerous risks, and how we can fight back.
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AFREF Speaker Series: Private Credit and the Dangerous Rise of Unregulated Finance
More and more companies are raising money in the growing private credit market rather than from banks. What does this growth of unregulated credit mean for the long term future of these borrower companies, and for the entire financial ecosystem?
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Topics: CFPBAFR Joins Sen. Warren, Rep. Pressley and Other Advocates on the One Year Anniversary of Trump’s Attacks on the CFPB
On February 9, 2026, Americans for Financial Reform joined Sen.Warren, Rep.Pressley, the CFPB Union, and other financial justice advocates to speak out against the unlawful takedown of this popular and much needed Federal agency.
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AFREF Speaker Series: Are We on the Brink of a 2008-Style Financial Crisis?
We appear to be in the midst of a speculative stock market bubble centered on AI. Does that mean we are about to have a 2008-style financial crisis? Join us for a conversation with Damon Silvers about the moment we are in and the steps that regulators should take to guard against the risk of…
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Topics: Climate Finance & InsuranceEJII Webinar: How Insurance Companies are Weathering Climate Change, Pulling In Record Profits, and Squeezing Us Dry
The Equitable & Just Insurance Initiative hosted a virtual deep dive into the climate-driven insurance crisis to discuss: ● What the insurance industry has been up to and how their practices are worsening the housing and affordability crises; and ● How a little-known regulator—your State Insurance Commissioner—can use its powers to investigate insurers, stop their…
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Topics: Private Equity and Private FundsStop Funding Billionaires Webinar
Billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and their companies Tesla and Palantir have huge investments from our pension funds. They’re using our money to attack our communities, destroy our jobs and steal our democracy—and they’re driving the kidnapping and deportation of immigrant families today. Our retirement funds and endowments should not be used against…
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Topics: Consumer Financial JusticeAFREF Speaker Series: Price Gouging Captive Customers
From car dealerships to hospitals to stadiums to payments and beyond, companies are charging “captive customers” more in situations where they do not have choices.
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AFREF Speaker Series: A Burst AI Bubble is Only the Beginning
AI poses real risks to workers and civil rights, the economy, the environment and the stability of our financial system. With this Pandora’s box opened, what repercussions can we expect to see in the coming years? Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund spoke with Hilary J. Allen, Professor at the American University Washington College of
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Topics: Climate Finance & InsuranceWebinar: Katrina at 20: Climate Capital, Injustice, and the Path Forward
On the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, AFR/AFREF’s Associate Director of Housing Policy Caroline Nagy joined a webinar, “Katrina at 20: Climate Capital, Injustice, and the Path Forward,” hosted by Manley Consulting Group, The Horizon Project, Hip Hop Caucus, and Majority Action. The conversation honored the lives lost and communities forever changed by Katrina while
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Topics: Save The Post Office
03/19 – AFREF Webinar: 2025 Call to Save the Post Office!
On Wednesday, March 19, 2025 The Save the Post Office Coalition and A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service held a virtual open convening for coalition members, both organizations and individuals, who are ready to organize and act to protect The United States Postal Service. Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle USPS are an…
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Topics: Corporate Governance & Power
What’s Behind Industry Cries of Alleged ‘Debanking’? A Conversation with Graham Steele
Politically influential industries have been crying “debanking,” accusing banks of unjustly denying banking services to businesses. Recently, these complaints have picked up steam with some congressional leaders and even President Trump. What is at stake for the industry players behind these cries, the banks they are accusing of wrongdoing, the safety and stability of our
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Topics: Corporate Governance & Power
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE TAX FIGHT: Lessons from last time & proposals to tax CEO pay & stock buybacks
The first in our WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE TAX FIGHT Hill briefing series. Panelists and legislative champions discuss how taxing CEO pay and stock buybacks is the ultimate pro-worker tax policy. Note: Q&A has been edited out to allow participant candor.
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Webinar on Crypto Companies’ Unprecedented Election Spending
On October 24, 2024, Americans for Financial Reform (w/ Demand Progress) partnered with Public Citizen to host a webinar entitled “Crypto Companies’ Unprecedented Election Spending.” The webinar featured commentary and analysis from experts and policy makers regarding the outsized spending by crypto billionaires and firms in this year’s election cycle, and the impact such spending…
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Event: Senator Warren, AFR, Celebrate Victory in CFPB Case on Supreme Court Steps
Americans for Financial Reform joined Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other coalition members on the steps of the Supreme Court Thursday to celebrate the Court’s favorable ruling in CFPB vs. CFSA, a case in which the payday lending lobby, with the support of Wall Street, sought to destroy the funding mechanism of the Consumer Financial Protection…
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Events: Alexa Philo, AFR’s Senior Policy Analyst, Joined a Panel for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee
Alexa joined the Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee on April 10 to speak to the importance of the regulators’ large bank capital proposals. She explained key parts of the proposal impacting derivatives clearing and why all participants in the commodities derivative markets, whether exchanged traded, cleared, or uncleared, should support the proposals in the interest of
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Events: Alexa Philo, AFR’s Senior Policy Analyst, Joined a Panel for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee
Alexa joined the Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee on April 10 to speak to the importance of the regulators’ large bank capital proposals. She explained key parts of the proposal impacting derivatives clearing and why all participants in the commodities derivative markets, whether exchanged traded, cleared, or uncleared, should support the proposals in the interest of…
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Event: Ranking Member Waters, Professor Anat Admati and Professor Jeremy Kress debunked myths about bank capital at Admati’s book event
Americans for Financial Reform, together with Better Markets, welcomed Anat Admati, Professor of Finance and Economics at the Stanford School of Business, together with esteemed panelist, Assistant Professor of Business Law at Michigan Ross, Jeremy Kress, to discuss the recent update to Anat’s co-authored book, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What
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Event: Ranking Member Waters, Professor Anat Admati and Professor Jeremy Kress debunked myths about bank capital at Admati’s book event
Americans for Financial Reform, together with Better Markets, welcomed Anat Admati, Professor of Finance and Economics at the Stanford School of Business, together with esteemed panelist, Assistant Professor of Business Law at Michigan Ross, Jeremy Kress, to discuss the recent update to Anat’s co-authored book, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What…
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Event: Private Equity’s Attacks on Basic Human Needs
Wall Street private equity firms have experienced exponential growth, accumulating substantial influence across critical sectors of the economy. From corporate landlords displacing tenants to healthcare facilities suffering under private equity ownership, the impact is far-reaching.
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Event: Industry legal challenges to the SEC private funds disclosure rule: What’s at stake
This webinar examines the widespread harm that all businesses and investors would suddenly face if the Securities and Exchange Commission’s broadly accepted requirements for truthful disclosures and rules protecting investors suddenly come into question if the courts serve the SEC with an adverse ruling on a number of ongoing legal cases. In particular, the webinar
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Event: Industry legal challenges to the SEC private funds disclosure rule: what’s at stake
Join us on March 14, 2024, at 1:00 PM, as we will examine the widespread harm that all businesses and investors would suddenly face if the Securities and Exchange Commission’s broadly accepted requirements for truthful disclosures and rules protecting investors are overturned by the courts. SEC rules are facing scrutiny in a number of ongoing…
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Event: Reparations: How to Fund Them & Avoid a Wall Street Takeover
Join us for a pivotal fireside chat on March 7, 2024, at 2:00 PM, on the pressing issue of reparations. “Reparations: How to Fund Them & Avoid a Wall Street Takeover” brings together thought leaders Jeremy Bearer-Friend (George Washington University Law), Alvin Velazquez (SEIU), and moderator Ericka Taylor (Take On Wall Street and Americans for…
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Events: One Year Later: Lessons from the March 2023 Bank Failures (The Brookings Instution)
Alexa Philo, senior policy analyst, banking, systemic risk, and economic & racial justice at Americans for Financial Reform, participated in the second panel, titled “Resolving Failing Banks.” This panel explored the weaknesses exposed in the current approach to resolving failing banks and potential solutions.
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Event: Taking Action Against Private Equity in Nursing Homes with Staff to Patient Ratios
In September, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS) issued a rule that would require a minimum staff to patient ratio in nursing homes. This is a historic action by the Biden Administration. However, the ratio must be stronger to protect residents and workers. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents nursing home
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Events: Taking Action Against Private Equity in Nursing Homes with Staff to Patient Ratios
In September, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS) issued a rule that would require a minimum staff to patient ratio in nursing homes. This is a historic action by the Biden Administration. However, the ratio must be stronger to protect residents and workers. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents nursing home
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Event: Taking Action Against Private Equity in Nursing Homes with Staff to Patient RatiosEvent:
AFR hosted a webinar with healthcare policy expert Robert Seifert & SEIU leaders and members. Discover how advocates and policymakers are pushing back against private equity’s looting in nursing homes. This live webinar took place on Wednesday, November 1st, 2023
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Media Advisory: Press Briefing with Legal Experts to Review CFPB v. CFSA SCOTUS Oral Arguments
Washington, D.C. – On Oct. 3, at 12 pm ET (Time subject to change per end of arguments), Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) will host a virtual press briefing to review the oral arguments in one of this term’s most important Supreme Court cases concerning the stability of the American financial system and the future…
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Topics: FinTech/Crypto
A Conversation with Ben McKenzie
A Conversation with Ben McKenzie – “Easy Money: Cryptocurrencies, Casino Capitalism and the Golden Age of Fraud.” Cryptocurrencies and the hype (and harm) surrounding them have been a key part of pop culture the last few years. But not everyone in the entertainment industry has bought into the hype – Ben McKenzie, a film and
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Events: Lessons for Bank Regulation and Oversight from the 2023 Banking Stress
Please join the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (“AFREF”) to discuss lessons learned from stressed conditions in banking during 2023. Keynote speaker Graham Steele, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions, will speak to the takeaways for bank regulation and oversight, followed by a distinguished panel of banking, financial regulation and climate finance…
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Book Talk With Emily Flitter
Join Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund for a conversation with Emily Flitter, finance reporter at The New York Times, on June 30th, from 12:00 to 1:00 PM (ET) for a Zoom discussion on her new book, The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America. In her book, Emily Flitter takes readers on a
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Topics: Private Equity and Private Funds
Taking Action Against Private Equity in Nursing Homes
In February, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS) issued a rule that would require disclosure of ownership for skilled nursing and nursing facilities. Currently, private equity firms hide behind layers of ownership, often making it impossible to link specific facilities to the private equity owners. We believe that private equity ownership is incompatible with quality patient
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Topics: Corporate Governance & Power
Public Money for the Public Good
Find Out What the Biden Administration Can Do To Make Sure Public Dollars Support Good Jobs Instead of Enriching Wealthy CEOs and Wall Street. The next two years provide a critical opportunity to catalyze public investments to move us away from a financialized economy rife with overpaid Wall Street executives and CEOs and underpaid workers,
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Media Advisory: Experts discuss judicial attempt to destroy CFPB funding
Remarks and Q&A with prominent legal experts on the extreme attempt by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn CFPB’s payday lending rule and destroy the funding mechanism Congress created for the agency, a step that threatens to unleash chaos in consumer finance markets and inhibit the agency’s work in protecting consumers.
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Topics: Private Equity and Private Funds
Briefing on Private Equity Climate Risks
Join Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) for the release of their NEW scorecard that sheds light on eight of the largest private equity firms in the world, their collective holdings of billions of dollars in energy and fossil fuels, and what can be done to protect
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Topics: FinTech/Crypto
Why Crypto is not the Solution to Financial Inclusion
Americans for Financial Reform and the Take on Wall Street campaign gathered several experts on July 1 to lay out the multiple ugly truths about crypto and addressed a few reasons why we should not take the promises made by its most enthusiastic advocates at face value, and why regulators need to use the authority…
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Topics: Corporate Governance & Power
Lessons Learned from the Paycheck Protection Program
Hear highlights from a new paper by the COVID Oversight Coalition that highlights systemic problems with the Paycheck Protection Program. Designed to help small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic, the program actually lent hundreds of millions of dollars to corporations that did not use the money to support and retain workers. Hear from workers
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Topics: Climate Finance & Insurance
Support the SEC’s Proposed Disclosure Rule on Corporations’ Climate-related Financial Risks!
Watch the video at the link here. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took a much-needed step forward by introducing new proposed financial protections for investors, including everyday people like nurses, teachers, and firefighters with retirement plans like a 401K, pension or IRA, from climate-related financial risk. Wall Street and fossil fuel firms are already
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Topics: Climate Finance & Insurance
Toxic Money Series: Protecting Your Savings, Our Communities, and the Planet
Watch the webinar at the link here. Did you know that climate change poses a hidden threat to your investments, 401(k) accounts, and pensions? We’re all told that being financially responsible means investing in stocks and bonds, and saving for retirement. But if the world goes up in flames, our 401(k)s won’t help us. And
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Topics: Private Equity and Private Funds
Stop Wall Street #PrivateEquity from Hurting Families: Diane Lewis
This is the story of Diane Lewis, who had to pay outrageous fees to a private equity-owned company simply to speak with her incarcerated son. The money went to Securus Technologies. It is owned by Platinum Equity, the private equity firm run by Tom Gores, the billionaire owner of the Detroit Pistons. Private equity is
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Webinar: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 10th Birthday, with Senator Elizabeth Warren and Chairwoman Maxine Waters
The creation of the CFPB was a crucial, hard-won victory for the thousands of advocates, activists, allied organizations, and community leaders in AFR’s coalition. On Monday, July 19, these groups and individuals gathered virtually to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the CFPB and celebrate the bureau’s leadership in fighting for a just financial system.
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Brookings Institution Webinar: The Future of Bank Overdraft Fees
On Thursday, July 15, Linda Jun, senior counsel at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, spoke on a panel about the harms of bank overdraft fees and alternatives to the current system. She was joined by other consumer advocates and representatives from banks and financial technology firms that are creating alternatives to bank overdraft fees.…
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Webinar Save the Date: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 10th Birthday, featuring Senator Elizabeth Warren and guest panelists
Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), Consumer Federation of America (CFA), National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), Consumer Action and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights invite you to attend: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 10th Birthday, featuring Senator Elizabeth Warren and guest panelists When:
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Webinar: Increasing Access to Capital for Black-Owned Businesses
AFR and the Main Street Alliance hosted the third webinar in the event series “Small Business Needs In The Biden Administration” on April 15, 2021. The panel, “Increasing Access to Capital for Black Small Businesses,” was moderated by AFR Advocacy Director Rion Dennis.
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Webinar: A Decade after Dodd-Frank: What Next?
SAVE THE DATES — July 17, July 20, Aug. 4, and more Webinar Series A Decade after Dodd-Frank: What Next? Building a Just Financial System Ten years ago this month, Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in response to the financial crisis and the
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Webinar: A Decade of Dodd-Frank
Lisa Donner, executive director of AFR-EF spoke at a conference hosted by the Brookings Institution and the Center on Finance, Law & Policy at the University of Michigan dedicated to the landmark Dodd-Frank law, its impact on systemic risk and consumer protection, and the response to the COVID-19 crisis in both domestic and global contexts.
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Webinar: Protect the CFPB – A Supreme Court Briefing
Linda Jun, AFR-EF senior policy counsel, participated in a webinar hosted by Demand Justice on the Seila Law vs. CFPB case that was before the Supreme Court.
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“Five Economic Experts in Dialogue on the Ten Year Anniversary of the Failure of Lehman Brothers”
On the 10th Anniversary of the failure of Lehman Bros., five economic experts discuss the lessons learned and unlearned. What hasn’t changed, what is worse, and how it could all happen again
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Wall Street Speculation Tax – Webinar Highlights
A Tool for Financial Stability & Economic Recovery Webinar Briefing Sponsored by: AFL-CIO | Americans for Financial Reform | Center for Economic and Policy Research Communications Workers of America | The Main Street Alliance | Public Citizen JUNE 10, 2013 12pm EDT. A Wall Street speculation tax, also known as a financial transaction tax or
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AFR/NACA Webinar on Auto Lending Scams
On Nov. 8, 2012, AFR and the National Association of Consumer Advocates co-hosted this free webinar on abusive auto finance practices.