Financial consumers would have fewer protections than originally envisioned under a draft of a bill being circulated on Capitol Hill.
The latest proposal for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency would no longer require financial institutions to offer a “plain vanilla” version of its products, such as a basic 30-year fixed rate mortgage. That would free lenders to concentrate on selling more sophisticated and expensive products.
The changes were proposed in a memo sent to Democratic members of the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday evening by its chairman, Barney Frank.
The financial crisis sparked the idea for the agency, to make financial products safer for consumers. Advocates say such an agency could have prevented the subprime mortgage crisis and the resulting financial meltdown.
The agency would be able to examine and subpoena information from banks, while regulating financial tools such as mortgages and credit cards. Such an agency could determine the language on loan applications, how it’s presented and what the disclosure requirements are.
The new proposal would exempt non-bank businesses — such as merchants and retailers — from oversight. That means they could continue to offer customers tabs and layaway plans without facing a new layer of regulation, Frank’s memo said. Accountants, real estate brokers and agents also would be exempt.
Oddly enough, the banks are less than thrilled with the idea of this agency and would rather kill it outright.
Apparently, we are all toooo clever to discuss this issue.
DA==”The Issue” is the role of regulation with you initially taking the position that regulation is not needed that the consumer acting in a free market was competent to protect himself.
Then you were given multiple examples of just how wrong this is.
You counter by showing how parts of the regulatory scheme that you don’t support would take action.
Courts of Law are nothing but a most important part of the regulatory scheme==you sue based on regulatory laws==not free market dogma.
Seems to me you highlight a massive FAIL on your part.
Discussion of free market is WITHOUT EXCEPTION for idiots. THE ONLY rational discussion POSSIBLE is about what regulations should be applied.
You might respond “except for protecting against fraud” free market principles apply. Regulatiing fraud can rhetorically be linked to just about anything else making your exception 99.9% of what regulation is. But lets be generous and conservative. Fraud still takes up 80% of the regulatory issue.
When you find an instance of bad regulation that is argument NOT for free market, but rather for intelligent regulation.
This applies to health insurance as well.
#94 for the record, not that anyone’s reading this thread any more, no, you didn’t answer my question. It’s a yes/no question. Would you rather have people die in unsafe cars, eating unsafe food, taking unsafe drugs for a while until the people catch on that they’re unsafe, then try to sue huge corporations with fancy lawyers using up their meager savings, if any?
Yes or no.