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Wells Fargo Facing Discrimination Charges for Mortgage Loans

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Wells Fargo, once the largest mortgage lender in America, is facing accusations of discrimination linked to the industry’s widespread practice of providing mortgage loan discounts to specific borrowers, as reported by CNBC.

Continue reading Wells Fargo Facing Discrimination Charges for Mortgage Loans

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Rep.Scott Garrett : The CFPB has oversized influence on the U.S. economy because it alone decides which financial products you are allowed to buy

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October 18,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, after a federal appeals court delivered a strong rebuke to the government’s new “consumer-finance watchdog”, declaring the agency’s unusual independence to be unconstitutional, and ordering its powers be curbed. Rep. Scott Garrett gave us his take on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) . In an email Garret spelled out the issues:

“This week, a federal court found that one of the most secretive Washington bureaucracies violates the constitutionally-mandated system of checks and balances designed to protect Americans from abuses of government authority. The court decided that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is unconstitutional because of its toxic combination of immense power and little accountability. As Chairman of the Financial Services subcommittee that is responsible for making sure our country has competitive and robust capital markets, I have worked with my colleagues on solutions to restructure the CFPB in a way that protects consumers while holding Washington accountable to We the People.  
The CFPB has oversized influence on the U.S. economy because it alone decides which financial products you are allowed to buy. Everything from mortgages, to car loans, to retirement savings, the CFPB’s current structure allows it to unilaterally infringe on the economic choices of every American.

With a single, politically appointed head and its ability to bypass Congress to get funding, the CFPB acts as a rogue federal bureaucracy.  And while the CFPB has an important mission, it’s unacceptable to allow a single government agency to control how Americans can spend their own money.

In fact, in his decision on this case, Judge Brett Kavanaugh said, “Other than the President, the Director of the CFPB is the single most powerful official in the entire United States Government, at least when measured in terms of unilateral power.” As someone who has been an outspoken critic of this agency’s unchecked power, I completely agree.

To implement consumer protections that actually put people and families first, a complete re-organization of this bureaucracy is needed. I recently supported the Financial CHOICE Act, a bill that would transform the CFPB into a bipartisan, five-member commission which is subject to Congressional oversight and appropriations, just like other independent Washington agencies. This is the only way to ensure that Washington will actually do its job instead of acting in its own self-interest.

This ruling that the CFPB’s structure is unconstitutional is a win for transparency, and for the checks and balances that protect American families from abuses by overzealous government bureaucrats.  While stories like this don’t always make front page news, I feel it’s my responsibility to pass along information about my work and my priorities in Congress to the people of New Jersey’s Fifth District.”

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Opponents of CHOICE Act Aren’t Interested in Protecting Consumers

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“the CHOICE Act offers us a way out by pointing us towards a system that will allow the market to determine the risk of a financial institution, and make it unlikely that taxpayers will ever be called on again to bail out Wall Street and the bad decisions of regulators who oversee it” Rep. Scott Garrett CD5

Norbert Michel / @norbertjmichel / September 20, 2016
On Tuesday, Sept. 13, the House Financial Services Committee passed the Financial CHOICE Act. Among other needed financial reforms, the bill would make taxpayer-funded bailouts of big banks less likely and ease regulations that hurt community banks.

It’s hardly a surprise that the vote (30–26) was largely along party lines, but some of the anti-CHOICE Act rhetoric was disturbing. Just as with the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, it appears that fear-mongering and special interest lobbying will prevent real financial reforms from even being debated.

Only one of the bill’s 11 sections deals with reform of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), but opponents are doing their best to tie this entire debate to the CFPB and Wells Fargo. In the process, they’re presenting Americans with a false choice: leave the CFPB alone and remain safe, or reform the CFPB and drown in fraud.

Ranking member Maxine Waters, D-Calif., proclaimed:

We need to look no further than just last week to see why we need a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which used its authorities under Dodd-Frank to uncover a massive scheme under which millions of consumer accounts at Wells Fargo were fraudulently opened, with the bulk of this fraud perpetrated in my hometown of Los Angeles.

One serious problem with this logic is that the fraud occurred just prior to 2014, almost two years after the CFPB was up and running. And the CFPB didn’t uncover it.

If the CFPB is so vital for fraud protection, what happened?

But what good is logic when the objective is to scare everyone into believing Dodd-Frank and the CFPB make us safer? Fear-mongering is a tried and true Washington tactic, especially when it comes to financial markets.

And it’s not just politicians who use fear-mongering. Special interest groups use the same ploy, and the retail trade associations’ opposition to the CHOICE Act’s repealing of the so-called Durbin Amendment is the perfect example.

The Durbin Amendment, named after Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, imposed a price cap on the debit card interchange (“swipe”) fees that banks charge for using their cards. Supposedly, retailers everywhere were going to pass these savings on to their consumers.

As was easily predicted, consumers haven’t saved at all. Even Barney Frank admits that consumers didn’t see any benefit from the price cap.

Instead, retailers have benefited from the lower fees without lowering their customers’ prices. Worse, consumers have lost out on low-cost banking services because banks raised other fees to compensate for their lost revenue.

Need more evidence?

It’s not the consumers clamoring for the House to leave price controls in place. It is business and retail trade associations, such as the National Grocers Association, the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America, and the National Restaurant Association.

There’s no doubt that these groups’ members have a difficult time running a profitable business, but so does everyone. Instead of pushing back on the CHOICE Act over one tiny section—one that would benefit millions of consumers—these groups should push for large-scale relief of the regulations that make it so difficult for their members to earn money.

Supporting the types of reforms in the CHOICE Act would be a great place to start.

https://dailysignal.com/2016/09/20/opponents-of-choice-act-arent-interested-in-protecting-consumers/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CapitolBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTW1KbU9EZ3lOVEV4TldGbCIsInQiOiJqeU1sbkJzK3BJK2dXZlV6d0t3RVljaVNnSStBc3B6VEdqYzl4cWZUa1h0bDBlUnhLN25QeVFqUkt4K242dVREZWhlR25KY1E1Sjc1SVhNUngzT2NqMXJYeHRjSDFvbUxIVFBYQ3J0a1ZmND0ifQ%3D%3D

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Who will protect consumers from the CFPB

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Who will protect consumers from the CFPB
By Thomas Bezas

It is the most powerful agency you have never heard of, and it should be catapulted to the top of the growing list of federal agencies under scrutiny for abusing their authority. The behavior of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is not a rehash of the NSA or IRS scandals; it is bigger and it is time people took notice.

Cloistered in the Federal Reserve, this secretive agency has perhaps the broadest mandate of any government agency, yet the least amount of oversight.  It has the power to regulate virtually every financial product offered in the nation.  From mortgages to credit card transactions, the agency wields a power that can change the way every American banks, shops, obtains a loan, accesses education, and manages their personal finances.

It was created to presumably protect consumers from the unscrupulous practices of banks and other bad actors in the financial services industry.  Their charge is to investigate financial institutions and non-bank entities who offer financial products then promulgate regulations and create enforcement actions to address practices the CFPB deems unfair or fraudulent.

Driving the agency’s work is Director Richard Cordray and a core group of staffers from both President Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s campaign teams. One senior advisory board member is even the former vice presidential nominee of the Socialist Party of the United States.  Many of these folks have a substantial political pedigree but little experience in financial services.

Developed purposefully by the Dodd-Frank legislation to be outside the purview of Congressional budget oversight, the CFPB need only answer “no comment” anytime Congress wants answers.  However, the American must people demand transparency from a regulatory agency with the ability to have an enormous impact on our economy and personal freedom.

Read more: https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/204008-whio-will-protect-consumers-frm-the-cfpb#ixzz2ziI4t3MZ

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Federal agency charged with helping consumers make better financial decisions is facing questions about how it has managed its own money

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Federal agency charged with helping consumers make better financial decisions is facing questions about how it has managed its own money

Is the CFPB’s Building a Money Pit?

The federal agency charged with helping consumers make better financial decisions is facing questions about how it has managed its own money.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, came under fire Tuesday on Capitol Hill for what Republicans characterized as a lavish plan to renovate property located on G Street near the White House.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Jeb. Hensarling (R., Texas) questioned why renovating the building had soared to $145.1 million from a prior estimate of $95 million, according to a December financial report from the regulator. The regulator’s employees are expected to move to temporary space while the renovation work is being completed.

Mr. Hensarling compared the agency’s renovation of the late-1970s-era building, on a cost-per-square foot basis, to the Trump World Tower in New York, Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai—the tallest building in the world.

“Explain to me, Mr. Director, why I should be–why I shouldn’t be outraged, and why the American people shouldn’t be outraged,” he said.

https://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/01/28/is-the-cfpbs-building-a-money-pit/