Fight For The CFPA Is ‘A Dispute Between Families And Banks,’ Says Elizabeth Warren

Shahien Nasiripour, Huffington Post

While members of the Senate Banking Committee debate proposals to fix the nation’s broken financial system and ineffective approach to protecting consumers, Elizabeth Warren has one message: Pass a strong bill or nothing at all.

“My first choice is a strong consumer agency,” the Harvard Law professor and federal bailout watchdog said in an interview with the Huffington Post. “My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor.”

There’s been a steady leak of Senate proposals to fix the dysfunctional way federal regulators protect consumers from abusive lenders. One was an independent unit housed within the Treasury Department; another was a new entity, housed in the Federal Reserve, with little independence or power.

The Senate shouldn’t waste its time, asserts Warren, explaining that current proposals fail to address some of her key priorities such as arming the proposed agency with independent rule-making authority, without interference by bank regulators.

Read more here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/03/fight-for-the-cfpa-is-a-d_n_483707.html

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FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair Committed To Independent Consumer Agency

Shahien Nasiripour, Huffington Post/AP

One of the nation’s top banking regulators reiterated her support for an independent agency to protect borrowers from predatory lenders, putting her at odds with her fellow regulators and the industry she oversees.

“Consumer abuses were one of the root causes of the financial crisis and regulatory reform legislation should address this problem,” Andrew Gray, a spokesman for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, wrote in an e-mail to Huffington Post. “The FDIC has been on the record that the ideal way to do this is through an independent agency with the power to write rules for the banks and non-banks alike.”

The statement follows Bair’s remarks Monday on consumer protection before a conference of state attorneys general in which she said that the proposed agency “would help community banks, not hurt them,” reports The Associated Press.

Read more here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/02/fdic-chairman-sheila-bair_n_482556.html

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