The possible acquisition of drugstore chain Walgreens risks writing a new chapter in the long-running saga of private equity’s looting of the American retail sector, a trend that has caused the loss of over half a million jobs, numerous bankruptcies, and extensive consolidation that leads to higher prices, lower quality for consumers, and more precarious conditions for workers.
“Weakening the CFPB, slowing its work, or steering it to favor industry over the public interest,” explains the advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, “would give bad actors a green light to do their worst and further deepen this country’s racial wealth gap.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB) issued an important final rule on residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (rPACE), a form of green lending used to cover the cost of home improvements which is most commonly used for energy efficiency improvements and solar panel installations.
View or download a PDF of the letter here. Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen joined exactly 70 labor, community, consumer, environmental, and public interest organizations sent a letter urging the U.S. Senate to reconfirm Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Commissioner
The billionaire Elon Musk and the California venture capitalist Marc Andreessen have started a debate about the role of government that we should be having — but it might not go the way they would hope. They don’t like government agencies that stop corporations like theirs from ripping off consumers.
One day after a failed mega-merger attempt with Albertsons, Kroger launched plans to repurchase a massive $7.5 billion of their own stock, a clear effort to boost short-term stock prices and save CEO Rodney McMullen’s job by lining the pockets of its already wealthy shareholders.
“I think you could sort of look at this . . . as a signpost for the future,” said Mark Hays, associate director for cryptocurrency and financial technology at the consumer advocate group Americans for Financial Reform. “If things go wrong, a report like this is one of those things that you look back on to say, ‘What were the early warning signs?’”
“High overdraft fees make it harder for customers to be able to return back to a positive balance,” [said Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.] “It contributes to involuntary account closures, even from customers being blocked out of the banking system altogether.”
More than 40 organizations are urging the reconfirmation of Caroline Crenshaw for another term at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The presence of principled voices such as Crenshaw’s at the SEC is absolutely critical, especially when the incoming Trump administration has signaled its intent to break from the tradition of selecting candidates on a bipartisan basis.
Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized new protections against overdraft fee abuses at the largest financial institutions, closing a decades-old loophole that allowed big banks to gouge their customers for an inexpensive service. The CFPB’s overdraft fee rule will reduce most overdraft fees from $35 per transaction down to $5, saving households in the United States $5 billion annually.