Posts tagged as:

regulation

Funny or Die on the Need for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency

March 3, 2010

Funny or Die’s Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

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White House on the Proposed CFPA

October 9, 2009

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee on the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency:

(via Consumerist)

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Consumer Financial Protection Agency must have teeth and be flexible

June 18, 2009

Earlier this week, President Obama announced his plan to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency as part of his financial reform package. It is a great idea, and I hope it will succeed.
Why we need it
If you buy a sports car, you are not likely to accept a station wagon when you go to pick [...]

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Re-regulation on the Squawk Box

May 11, 2009

This weekend I got embroiled in a discussion with someone who insisted that government regulation caused the economic meltdown. This person is not alone in believing that regulation is always a bad thing, and can only cause harm.
At some point I realized that this was a silly debate to be having, sort of like whether or [...]

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Elizabeth Warren’s Financial Product Safety Commission

March 5, 2009

Senator Durbin (D, IL) is soon expected to introduce legislation which would create a federal “Financial Product Safety Commission” (FPSC). This concept was originally proposed by the ever-fabulous Professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School (pictured).
Her idea to make a regulator for financial products modeled on the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been floating around [...]

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Thank goodness this COP is on the beat (AFFIL Week)

February 10, 2009

On January 29, the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) released its Special Report on Regulatory Reform (PDF link). The COP, established by Congress to oversee the Treasury’s bailout plan, is chaired by Harvard law professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren. The report argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in twenty-five years of financial [...]

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Moving forward: making financial regulation make sense (AFFIL week)

February 9, 2009

It is 2009 and the economy has tanked.  Subprime mortgage lending was the domino that started the whole mess a-falling.  Worst of all, there is no end in sight to the recession we’ve slid into.
The good news is that, in the midst of the mess, there is a rare opportunity to take a look at [...]

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FEDS: BANKS MUST STOP MISBEHAVING … IN 2010

December 18, 2008

FEDS: BANKS MUST STOP MISBEHAVING … IN 2010 | MSNBC

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Regulators adopt new credit card rules

December 18, 2008

Regulators adopt new credit card rules | AP (via Yahoo! News)

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America needs smart, limited, enforceable regulations

October 2, 2008

With all the campaign rhetoric flying around as Congress scrambles to rescue its biggest campaign contributors, it is easy to lose focus on the underlying problem: how did we reach a point where Wall Street fat cats determine the stability of our country and the economic prosperity of regular Americans?
When the stability of Wall Street [...]

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Relaxation of Regulatory Capital Rules

September 17, 2008

“[T]he Fed seems to be knocking down every firewall that exists in banking regulation in an effort to stanch the current crisis. The danger, of course, is that by demolishing prudential firewalls, the crisis could grow even bigger.” Relaxation of Regulatory Capital Rules | Credit Slips

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Fed to Issue New Mortgage Lending Regulations Next Week

July 9, 2008

Fed to Issue New Mortgage Lending Regulations Next Week | Consumer Law & Policy

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Report: cable more expensive in wake of FCC franchise reform

July 8, 2008

Recognize this pattern? Industry promises that freedom from regulation will lead to lower prices. Government goes along with the plan. Then industry jacks up prices now that nobody can tell it not to. Typical. Report: cable more expensive in wake of FCC franchise reform | Ars Technica

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Different crowd, same message

May 28, 2008

I recently had the privilege of attending a small conference at UMass/Amherst in honor of progressive financial guru Jane D’Arista. Details about the conference (The Political Economy of Monetary Policy and Financial Regulation) and about its sponsor, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), are available here.
Jane worked for a dozen years as a key [...]

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The housing market mess; connecting some dots

February 21, 2008

It is getting time for a complete overhaul of the whole housing market in the US, rather than just messing with edges. Two different stories in the Minneapolis StarTribune this morning illustrate why.
First is the story about all the people applying for Section 8 assistance. Recently about 3,700 people took applications, for one of [...]

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Mortgage securitizers fiddle as Rome burns

February 7, 2008

The NYTimes has a piece on the 5th Annual Conference of the American Securitization Forum held in Las Vegas. These are the guys who played a major role in bring us the current foreclosure mess. Well while the rest of the country and the world for that matter mucks its way out of the mess [...]

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Subprime borrowers shouldn’t get all the blame

December 20, 2007

In today’s StarTribune there is an opinion piece by Steve Chapman in which he complains that many of the solutions coming out for the subprime mess are misguided because “they punish lenders for the failings of borrowers. Why should someone who has kept the terms of a contract be penalized for the benefit of [...]

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Yeah! Where was Washington?

December 17, 2007

The New York Times has a good piece on the total lack of interest on the part of Washington to listen to the many voices of reason who were warning about the subprime crisis. I think overall though it lets the Feds off too easy, especially Alan Greenspan. The discussion with Greenspan has some interesting [...]

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Will Wall Street come clean?

December 5, 2007

Where has the Fed been? This is a good example of why federal preemption of banking regulation or any regulation is such a bad idea.
We have a national problem causing havoc across America and we have to wait for Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York subpoenaed major Wall Street firms including Merrill Lynch, [...]

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Mortgage fraud, another Enron?

November 30, 2007

The StarTribune reported today on another criminal investigation of mortgage fraud. While it is a good thing that someone is going after these people for the fraud they have committed, it would have been much better if someone had been guarding the hen house in the first place. The eggs are now gone and a [...]

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