August 03, 2023
Blog Post BankingCampaign FinanceCongressional OversightConsumer ProtectionFinancial RegulationIndependent Agencies
Why Does Thom Tillis Love Junk Fees?
Because his corporate donors profit from them.
July 14, 2023
The Crypto Industry Thinks Gary Gensler Should Recuse Himself From Enforcement Actions.
If we were to agree to the industry’s demand that policy experts should be precluded from regulating issues they have spent significant amounts of time developing expertise in, we would be setting a precedent that severely undermines any kind of public-minded enforcement. In fact, banning experts such as Gensler would leave the public with a pool of potential regulators who are either already corporate-aligned or unqualified to adequately opine on pressing issues.
July 11, 2023
Blog Post Consumer ProtectionFinancial RegulationIndependent AgenciesJudiciaryRevolving DoorSupreme Court
Trump’s CFPB Saboteurs Tell The Supreme Court To Finish The Job
Mick Mulvaney and Eric Blankenstein want to permanently cripple their former agency.
July 07, 2023
Blog Post 2020 Election/TransitionConsumer ProtectionFinancial RegulationIndependent AgenciesJudiciarySupreme Court
Coup Memo Author John Eastman Tells SCOTUS To Gut The CFPB
The crackpot former Trump lawyer, who is facing disbarment for trying to overturn the 2020 election, wants to help Big Business rip you off.
July 07, 2023 | The American Prospect
Secretary Yellen, Where Are the Crypto Tax Regulations?
Despite this, Janet Yellen’s Treasury Department has yet to formalize the regulations that would usher in this new reporting regime. The initial expectation was to have Treasury provide the new guidance by the end of 2022, allowing reporting changes to begin with transactions completed in 2023. However, despite approval of the proposed regulations by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in February (the usual stumbling block in this sort of proceeding), the department has yet to publish the regulations.
June 15, 2023
RELEASE: GOP Corporate Shills Say The Quiet Part Loud At CFPB Hearing
Republicans inadvertently expose their own corruption while attacking an upstanding public servant.
May 10, 2023
What The SVB Collapse Says About Crypto’s “Most Stable” Stablecoin
The March 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — aside from foregrounding the hypocrisy of neoliberal pundits and libertarian venture capitalists alike — spotlighted the instability of the cryptocurrency industry’s most ostensibly stable offering. Hidden within the uncertainty of SVB’s fate following a $42 billion withdrawal frenzy was a similar crisis of confidence for Circle Internet Financial and its stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC).
April 28, 2023
While Thorough, Fed Report Refuses To Name Names On SVB Failure
One glaring blind spot does jump out: the complete absence of the names ‘Quarles,’ ‘Barr,’ ‘Powell,’ or any other actual member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from the main text of the report.”
April 26, 2023
Memo To Reporters: What The Fed's Self-Investigation Must Explore To Be Credible
The Fed report is being written by Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr, whose own failures ought to be among the report’s focuses.
April 21, 2023
Rescinding Trump’s Shields For Non-Bank Financial Firms Is A Crucial First Step
Rolling back Trump’s framework just means that FSOC is allowing itself to see the financial system through a realistic lens.
April 19, 2023
Amid Reports of Block’s Alleged Criminality, How Does Board Member Larry Summers Manage His Multiple Corporate Engantlements?
It’s high time that members of the press who regularly turn to Summers for his views on the economy begin questioning him on how he is able to adequately perform his multiple advisory roles and moreover, why there is a pattern of illegality at firms he advises. Or they could simply toss him to the aether, and platform non-conflicted experts instead.
April 18, 2023
How A Herbert Hoover Policy Got Wrapped Up In SVB And A Fed Opening
One of the flashing-red warning signs about SVB’s bad balance sheet was the huge cash advances it was taking out of the FHLBank system.
April 10, 2023
The Larry Summers-Linked Fintech Firm That Bought A Bank
By doing so, Jiko became one of the, if not the, first fintech company to buy a national bank.
April 06, 2023
We Have Always Been Right About Jerome Powell
Despite years of our best advice, and indeed the better judgments of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other progressives in Congress, government watchdogs like Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and others, nearly one year ago President Joe Biden disappointed his responsibility to the public and to his own economic agenda by renominating Donald Trump’s hand picked head of the Fed: Jerome Powell. Biden bafflingly stuck by Powell despite his years of betraying labor unions, environmental groups and frontline communities, and the middle class. As a result, broad coalitions of folks concerned about the climate crisis, about the long term safety and stability of our financial system, about attacks on labor and the working class, about housing insecurity and the long term impacts of the pandemic, mobilized against Powell’s renomination because his storied track record of, well, making each of these things (and more!) worse.