Who Will Protect Consumers?
According to a source close to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, he is openly against the potential nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The financial reform bill passed by the Senate on Thursday mandates the creation of this new consumer agency charged with protecting consumers from predatory lenders. Geithner doesn't want the most outspoken advocate for creating the agency to lead it. That makes perfect sense. Let's only let people run organizations who hate those organizations, right? Like Bill Bennett - an outspoken advocate of shutting down and destroying the Department of Education, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to head that agency. Or putting an Arabian Horse Judge to be head of FEMA. That's how government should run, according to Republicans and Geithner. Never, ever let somebody work in a government agency who actually has a passion for the agency or is competent to run it! Case in point? Tim Geithner, who as president of the New York Fed oversaw a decade of insane banking practices that crashed the entire planet's economy, is now Secretary of the Treasury. It doesn't get any crazier than that.
Comments
Talk about revolution! If Elizabeth Warren is not named head of CFPA, this should bring us close to revolting. I e-mailed Obama and Congress yesterday, called today and will call every day on this subject......let's show Geithner whose voice really matters for a change.
One year ago today:
China's economy soars thanks to government spending (YouTube video)
If Timmy doesn't like LIz, then it ain't gonna happen.
There's also the possibility this was part of deal to get a senate vote, & Tim's taking the heat.
She's being Brooksley Borned as we speak.
The 900 lb gorilla in the room is that the Federal Reserve is not a Federal Agency even though both Mr Hartman and Senator Sanders always refer to it as a Federal Agency (http://www.save-a-patriot.org/files/view/frcourt.html).
Unless we start calling this private organization what it is we will not understand why our government as been bleed out from the inside by entities such as Goldman Sachs.
http://hubpages.com/hub/No-2010-Unemployment-ExtensionSuicide
No 2010 Unemployment Extension=Suicide
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Unemployed Man Commits Suicide
It is official, the US Senate Republican Party has blood on its hands! Last week, a Michigan father of three committed suicide by shooting himself when he could no longer handle the pressures of having no money to feed and care for his family. He was losing everything he had worked so hard to accumulate. He became despondent when his sole source of income, his megar unemployment checks, were cut off when congress failed to pass the unemployment extension bill. With no chance of finding a new job
, he had lost all hope. This man had worked 32 years at the same company when he became unemployed in 2009. An excerpt from his suicide letter reads ," I am sorry, I have now lost every ounce of pride I ever had. You will be better off without me." A Memorial Service was held on Saturday July,17th 2010. He had collected Unemployment Compensation
for less than a year. His employer had paid into unemployment
for him for 32 years, yet he could only collect benefits for less than a year, how can that be? Michigan has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the United States. The seasonally adjusted rate was 13.2 % in June 2010.
The Republican Party opted to fillibuster and not pass legislation that would have extended unemployment benefits for 2.2 million Americans. They fillibusterd until it was time to go on Vacation. The same scinerio occured in May when they recessed after fillibustering and again went on vacation and left the bill in limbo.
What a shame when we can bailout big business, and forget the average working class American! Shame on all who have delayed the passage of the Unempoyment Extension Bill!
This is going to be a defining moment for President Obama - is he going to let one of the most progressive members of the Administration gain any traction at all?
Elizabeth Warren could easily be Obama's Frances Perkins - a powerful and commanding voice for progressive reform.
Instead, she seems poised to be his Brooksley Born, a Clinton-era Cassandra who sounded the alarm about financial abuse and was marginalized and made a pariah for her efforts. (Ironically, Born was marginalized by, among other people, Larry Summers, who is also in this administration).
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
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With His Holiness The Dalai Lama, at His home in Dharamsala, India (Synthesis Dialogues - made into a movie narrated by Harrison Ford)
Most career recruiters will tell you work in a career that you have a passion for. Your blog makes perfect sense. I worked for Predatory Lenders and a reputable bank. A consumer protection agency will see the loan programs as legal when presented by upper levels of management. But the consumer will get burned by the local branch loan officer and manager. Loan officers will also deceive the underwriter within the company to get the loan approved. I have seen it. To run the consumer protection agency at peak performance, I recommend auditors take a look at a sample of approved loans, like internal auditors do in the banks. Use a fine tooth comb to study some of the loans. You will see false documentation and loans approved that would have qualified at a better interest rate loan matrix. The problem I see is that this country is too large, you would need a legion of consumer protection agency auditors to weed out all the fraud that is festering in America today.