Elizabeth Warren Defends The Consumer Financial Protection Agency

Harvard Professor and Head of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP, Dr. Elizabeth Warren explains why America needs a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, CFPA. (July 16, 2009, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

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[IlDente]

You see Americans, you are too stupid to understand contracts. You can't possibly read or understand what you sign like WE can. Government management of credit always works out best for you, the simple-minded monkey children we call "voters" or "workers".

In conclusion; give us more power so we can further talk to you like you're retarded.

[gobias bluth]

I play the game Where's Obama (Waldo) on this site, try it. It's fun but difficult.

[Morton]

Harvard Professor and Head of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP, Dr. Elizabeth Warren says the market is broken.

Here's a hint. The market is broken.
Your system don't work.

Your gonna have to have a war to get out of this one. How many are gonna die?

[DailyBail]

Morton.

I'm not of the mind that a War is the likely outcome...after all, look at how we've been depleted and hurt by the Iraq war...I honestly think that's hyperbole that gets tossed around by teh doomsayers.

If you want my honest guess, I suspect we are Japan. 10 years of slow growth...under baseline...maybe 1% average over the whole span. Huge decisions looming on entitlements and bringing troops home.

Dente.

I wouldn't mind some easier to read CC contracts...

[IlDente]

@DailyBail:

Then demand them from your CC provider, or start a CC company that provides them and take the clients who are of like mind. Considering what a stellar job all of our other federal agencies have done, I seriously doubt the CFPA will do anything other than make credit cards more expensive.

[James H]

Il Dente,

I don't like the idea of another federal agency any more than you do, but what Warren proposes, at least, is to enforce transparency where there had been what amounted to fraud. Contracts are great, but when the CC company banks on your not understanding the contract, you get into some really dicey territory as far as I'm concerned. I mean, just because you have all the superficial trappings of a legally binding contract, and just because you're following the law to a "t", that doesn't mean that at the same time you're not also committing fraud. It's not as if the people getting the cards actually realize everything that they're signing up for. In theory, they should know and take responsibility for knowing, but being stupid doesn't make it OK for someone else to defraud you. If the CC companies weren't abusing the legal system and the system of contracts, this wouldn't be necessary or even talked about.

If CC users were to seek legal redress, it should , in theory, be quite easy to tear up some of these CC contracts for being fraudulent or misleading -- but our legal system values and protects legally binding contracts. Still, it's difficult to make judgements about whether and when a contract is so overly complex that the essence of contractual agreement is actually non-existent. This isn't such clear-cut case of nanny-state vs. market as it might first appear because it is the CC companies who have used the GOVT legal system to enrich themselves. It's more a case of govt. regulation counteracting failures of the govt's legal system. Ideally, a class action suit on behalf of borrowers would just rip the CC companies a new one in penalties and clawbacks.

[Assassin]

And then there's their mandatory "binding arbitration" that keeps disputes out of the real court system. How the hell can they just declare "American law won't apply here because we don't care for it"?

[DailyBail]

@assassin

Excellent point.

[AF"Bob"BlairJr]

The Truth in Savings Act uses the mathematically-true, compounded (Effective) method of expressing the annual percentage rate (APR) and calls it the Annual Percentage Yield (APY). The Truth in Lending Act (TILA) of 1968 uses the mathematically-untrue simple-interest (Nominal) method of calculating the APR. The difference between the compound and simple interest can be slight at low interest rates with long payment periods, but at high interest rates with short periods the difference can be astronomical. Whatever agency is in charge should easily change TILA to the mathematically-true APR by changing in the act the words “multiplied by” to “compounded for”. Now, there is the beginning of financial reform! Other than that, ban the “Rule of the Sum of the Numbers” and “Adjustable Rates” on mortgages.

[Switchman]

Yes, we don't need no stinkin' consumer protection! The auto companies will put seat-belts and airbags in cars themselves if we just leave them alone! This is a free country, and corporations should be free to do whatever they want. Right?
Seriously, Elizabeth Warren would be a great choice to head the CFPA. She is sharp and capable.
There is so much fraud going on that isn't written down in fine print, it just happens out of sheer gall by these CC companies and other financial entities. Just pick up an AARP magazine and there will be an article about some new kind of scam every month. Get over your Obama-itis and government is the enemy-itis. Gee, if it wasn't for the government, we couldn't fight these endless wars.