The Senate approved the nomination of Paul Atkins to serve as Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on a partisan vote putting a deeply flawed nominee in office at a time of great market turmoil that could threaten investors, retirees and pensions, equity markets, and the broader economy.
At a time when far-right forces are literally dismantling the government, including stripping away most agencies’ regulatory and oversight capacity, further deregulation of the financial system would be a dangerous mistake that would help advance the far-right’s democracy-grab. The House and Senate Republicans are advancing so-called capital formation legislation that purports to be about helping companies raise capital but are really about undermining investor protections and exposing small investors—read people’s retirement and life savings—to the riskiest parts of the financial system.
This executive order is an unconstitutional power-grab that delegates supreme authority over congressionally-mandated, court-sanctioned statutes and regulatory safeguards to unelected, unnominated, unconfirmed bureaucrats.
The Trump White House unveiled a new executive order that illegally undermines the congressionally-mandated independence of federal agencies that have a statutory obligation to regulate impartially in order to protect the public. A fact sheet that accompanied the executive order singled out the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the stock markets, the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces antitrust law and consumer protection statutes, and the Federal Election Commission, which oversees electoral ethics and political spending.
The combination of Big Banks, Big Tech, and Big Data have converged to rampantly collect and commodify people’s most private information and financial data. These companies are surveilling every bank transaction, mouse click, cell phone tap, and online purchase.
AFREF alongside 14 other signers submitted a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) raising several abuses from the private equity industry and ways the Commission can directly address them
AFR submitted a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission supporting the Commission’s proposals to require foreign security-based swap dealers and participants to abide by the SEC’s own set of capital and initial margin requirements as opposed to the less stringent Basel capital requirements.
AFR joins a letter to the White House and the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), calling on President Biden to nominate individuals to fill the fourteen open inspector general positions by June 1, 2021. Inspectors general are a linchpin of government accountability yet fourteen of the seventy-four total offices of the inspectors general are vacant. The ongoing response to COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of using all available mechanisms within the federal government to ensure proper oversight and accountability of government programs.
Americans for Financial Reform joined ninety-five organizations and public interest leaders to send a letter calling on President-elect Joe Biden to embrace a bold and vigorous regulatory agenda to protect the public, workers and our environment, and help restore public trust in government.
The AFR Education Fund sent a statement for the record to the House Financial Services Committee concerning Facebook’s proposal for the Libra digital token and payment system. The statement describes ways in which Facebook is attempting to create an unregulated financial product of potentially global scale and the dangers this would pose to the users of the token and the broader financial system.