In the audience at the House Financial Services Committee’s semi-annual CFPB review hearing this morning, you’ll see a delegation of community leaders and consumer advocates from around the country wearing lime-green t-shirts and signs that say, “The CFPB Has Our Back.”
“Marcus Stanley, policy director of the public advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, said that the shift toward taking a long view with executive compensation is anecdotal at best… ‘From our perspective there hasn’t really been a fundamental change,’ Stanley said. ‘What we would want to see is something that moves closer to the old partnership model, where you stay genuinely at risk for a long period of time and where you’re just as sensitive to the downside… as the short-term upside incentives.'”
Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, analyzes the role of Wall Street reform in the 2016 presidential contest. He also discusses President Obama’s remarks about the regulatory reforms adopted since the 2008 financial crisis.
“We are deeply concerned by the slow pace and small number of discharges that have been processed and that many of the Department’s proposals in the current negotiated rulemaking process move in the wrong direction, reducing eligibility for relief, pitting students against schools, and creating unnecessary burdens on students and the Department.”
“‘The credit-rating agencies got away so easy, given what they did,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, a nonpartisan coalition in favor of stronger Wall Street regulation. ‘The happy days are here again. There’s not really been an interruption of the profit flow.'”
“Community Banks Have Returned to Profitability: The percentage of community banks that are profitable has increased every year since 2009. For the year 2015, over 95% of the nation’s 5,880 community banks showed a profit. This is up from 78% in 2010, the year Dodd-Frank passed.”
“‘This is one more reminder that it is crucial that people who lead these agencies are people strongly committed to reform and who will be as aggressive as they need to be despite pressure from the other side to slow down or weaken rules,’ said [AFR executive director Lisa] Donner.”
“Nearly six years after Dodd Frank’s enactment, key oversight agencies (including the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission) have still not completed crucial rules mandated by the law. These include measures deeply related to the causes of the financial crisis…”
“In a stroke of brilliant financial maneuvering Lone Star bundled some of the mortgages into bonds and sold them to investors, immediately booking large profits… ‘Lone Star has bought these loans at a discount from the government–-in effect, they got principal reduction. But they are not passing this benefit on to homeowners or communities,’ says Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform.
“Banking specialists who favor more stringent Wall Street rules expressed some concerns… ‘A derivatives exposure that looks small in normal times can become enormous in times of financial stress,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. “This rule may not contain adequate protections against that kind of risk.’”