Consumers and advocates rallied in Boston today in front of Goldman Sachs on the day of the company’s annual shareholder meeting to send a message loud and clear: we want financial reform now. A variety of groups were represented in the crowd, including Jobs with Justice, MassPIRG, City Live/Vida Urbana, Americans for Fairness in Lending,
AFR: Defeat Of Brown Kaufman Amendment Is A Win For The Banks Overall Bill Remains Strong But Big Banks Are Working Day And Night To Weaken It After the first full week of debate on Financial Reform the bill remains strong but the Big Banks did score a victory by defeating the important Brown Kaufman
This information is courtesy of the Center for Responsible Lending. Issue: The Senate financial reform bill, S. 3217 – section 1044, gives the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency far too much power to override (“preempt”) state consumer protection laws. To avoid another financial crisis, the provision should absolutely not be weakened any further
Read the full editorial here. It’s a springtime sales event for America’s auto dealers. Over the next week or so, they’ll toil feverishly to close deals — not with car buyers, but with members of the Senate in an effort get dealerships exempted from consumer protections in the banking reform bill. Senators should walk away. Autos
Preemption-Analysis of Senate provision
Oppose the Brownback amendment to exempt auto dealers from the CFPB. Data from several nationwide cases against the major auto lenders settled by the National Consumer Law Center and co-counsel from 2003 to 2007 showed widespread racial disparities, unrelated to credit risk, in the markups added by auto dealers to auto loan rates. As they do today,