“‘Fixing much of this could have been done 10 years ago by higher capital requirements, which we failed to do, but we need to move more in that direction,” [Sherrod] Brown, now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said at a press conference this month with Americans for Financial Reform.'”
“The financial system that pushed the U.S. economy to the edge of collapse in 2008 was a doubly rigged game. It was set up to inflate the profits of banks and insiders twice over—first through products designed to bilk consumers and investors, and second through massive speculation, with taxpayers ultimately paying for the bets that went bad. It was a dishonest system and a dangerous one, and while Dodd-Frank was not a complete fix for either problem, it has made progress on both.”
“Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) spoke about the Dodd-Frank financial reform act in an interview with Americans for Financial Reform, an advocacy group. ‘David can beat Goliath – that’s the meaning of Dodd-Frank,’ said the senator, who was a founding member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, established under the act. ‘We built Dodd-Frank with the biggest, most powerful institutions fighting us every inch of the way.'”
“The lead agency for investor protection isn’t a natural target for the party’s liberal wing… But half of all Americans own some form of stock… More important, the securities industry has insinuated itself into more of American life. Individuals and small business increasingly get loans through the capital markets; our 401(k) plans are based on publicly traded investments… ‘We marketized our retirement system, we marketized our banking system, and the SEC is the main securities regulator,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for the coalition Americans for Financial Reform.”
“‘A candidate could both support legislative change and tie commitments to that to how they’re thinking about appointments,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. Donner added that it’s also important what kind of economic advisers candidates surround themselves with.”
“‘These students were playing by the rules, sacrificing to get an education and improve their own and their families’ lives,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of groups formed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. “They should not be buried in debt for a scam that the Department of Education allowed to continue, even once fraud and abuse were clear.”