No RAT (Like Mick Mulvaney) Should Be Put In Charge Of The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was launched with great fanfare back in 2012 when President Obama finally had to act on behalf of consumers who'd too often been taken to the cleaners by assorted financial rats.  The biggest scam of all, of course, was the use of credit default swaps and their role in the 2008 financial meltdown.  These were basically financial bets - say on losses to be had by this or that bank, mortgage company, pension source - and were buried in dozens of financial instruments, especially collateralized mortgage obligations or CMOs.

In one FORTUNE article, ‘The $55 TRILLION Question', October, 2009, p. 135).Frank Partnoy- an economics professor and Morgan Stanley derivatives salesman was quoted thusly:

"The big problem is there are so many public companies- banks and corporations, and no one really knows how much exposure they have to CDS (credit default swap) contracts."

Since most CDS contracts were made "on the fly" in no formal mode, and often by word of mouth on cell phones (ibid.) no one even knew where all the $55 trillion of this toxic waste was buried. As another hedge fund operator (Chris Wolf) quoted in the article put it:

"This has become essentially the dark matter of the financial universe"

When the stuff was located, as banks etc. had to come clean (finally) it nearly brought down the entire financial system via a vast credit seizure.  In the wake of this debacle, President Barack Obama knew he had to act and approved of the  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - the original brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

At the time Obama named Richard Cordray, a respected former attorney general of Ohio, to be the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, after giving up hope for a confirmation vote in the Senate. The appointment meant the agency would be able to oversee a vast swath of lending companies and others accused at times of preying on consumers with shady practices.

In political terms, some media outlets portrayed Obama's move as "unapologetically brazen, the equivalent of a haymaker at Republicans in the Senate who had blocked his nominee". But in more sober and rational terms, Obama simply responded in kind to the fierce opposition and GOP obstructionism which had paralyzed many facets of his administration since he came to office.

The first move of the new  CFPB head, and one long overdue, was to demand simplified language for credit card and financial forms  (e.g. loans) . Hitherto, the language had been so dense and replete with mumbo-jumbo escape and conditional clauses that most Ph.D.s  in linguistics or English couldn't make sense out of it. In fact, had the Repukes  truly been for the little guys that they claim, they'd have applauded such simplification instead of trying to retain it.

But as we know Repukes are in the pockets of Business, whores to corporations and hyper-rich fatcats like the Koch brothers.   They view the "little guy"  basically as a collection of stupid pawns to be sacrificed when and where they see fit - to feed the extras to the rich.

That is exactly why the generic Repuke hates the CFPB.

Consumer groups hailed Obama's decision but as one might expect, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce balked and warned it was so legally shaky that the consumer bureau's work may be compromised. Of course, this is palpable horse manure. It isn't legally "shaky" at all, except in the minds of those who would screw consumers.

Flash forward now to the current impasse with Cordray having left but who promoted his assistant Leandra English  to interim director of the CFPB  on Friday. Trump, a.k.a. Dotard, countered by naming the Mick Mulvaney - already director of the Office of Management and Budget.  Recall Mulvaney is an incorrigible sleaze bag and rat who pushed for a despicable Donnie  Dotard budget back in March to cut programs such as "Meals on Wheels".   

The program is often the only lifeline many  oldsters and disabled vets have to getting decent nutrition because they're no longer mobile or able to drive.  The Meals on Wheels personnel also provide regular social  contact for people who may otherwise see no one for days or even weeks. As one WaPo writer noted at the time, one year's benefit from 'Meals on Wheels' for a senior is equivalent to his spending one day in the hospital.

Mulvaney at the same time also insisted on scrapping the School Meals program, claimng  "there is no demonstrable evidence school meals programs actually work". In fact, there is ample evidence, including here in Colo. where many kids depend on those meals to get them through the day's classes, so they aren't distracted by hunger. Of, course, the POS Mulvaney probably never had to go through a day's hunger at his posh elementary school.

But this is the rat the Mega -Rat Dotard has now appointed as head of the CFPB.   The stage was set for conflict  yesterday, when Leandra English and Mulvaney duly sent rival emails to the CFPB’s 1,600 employees, the Washington Post reported. First, English wrote: “I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. With Thanksgiving in mind, I wanted to take a moment to share my gratitude to all of you for your service.”  She signed off the message with the title “Acting Director.”

But it was Mulvaney, carrying a paper bag of doughnuts for staff, who entered the Director’s office at CFPB headquarters. He fired back: “It has come to my attention that Ms. English has reached out to many of you this morning via email in an attempt to exercise certain duties of the acting director. This is unfortunate but, in the atmosphere of the day, probably not unexpected. Please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as acting director.”

The White House and congressional Republicans expressed confidence in Dotard's "authority" based on a 1998 federal law.   But recognizing the illegitimacy of the whole operation Leandra English filed suit on Sunday night in the US district court for the District of Columbia, asking for a declaratory judgment and a temporary restraining order.  If law has any more meaning in Trump's Amerikka  she  ought to get that restraining order. Even better, tossing Mulvaney into the ape or rat cage he really belongs.

Let us note here for the sake of clarity, that the CFPB was created as an act of moral authority and initiative  on behalf of millions of citizens besieged by all manner of finance (loan, banking, credit card) sharks. Up to now, the CFPB has spared citizens more than $12 b in fraudulent hits that would have been extracted from their hides had the agency not existed.  Does Mick Mulvaney car about any of this? Hell no! NO more than he cared in March about seniors not getting food from 'Meals on "Wheels' or hungry kids getting fed via the School Meals program.

Let's also be mindful of the fact that on Nov. 16 Mulvaney actually stated:

"I don't like the fact that CFPB exists, I will be perfectly honest with you."

Now, if he hates the fact the very existence of the agency he is supposed to lead, then it follows that he has NO moral authority to lead it. One cannot at the same time be against an agency's very existence and also head it. At least not in any moral capacity.   That would be like Adolf Hitler appointing Himmler in charge of the Theresienstadt  camp and Himmler saying:  "I don't like the fact that Jews exist, I will be perfectly honest with you."

Would you really expect Himmler to attend to the needs of the Jews in that camp? Or, would he more likely dispatch them to the nearest gas chambers at Auschwitz?  I defy anyone to convince me Mulvaney's motives are any different with respect to the life, activities and influence of the CFPB!

Mulvaney, therefore, is just a large rat "guarding" the vulnerable eggs in a henhouse. In this case, instead of eggs the latter is full of citizen safeguards in respect of finance. Also, appointed by the illegitimate Dotard (himself a treasonous Russian backed rat) Mulvaney has no legal authority either.  That is my take and you are free to disagree with it if you will - but there it is.  And I don't give one damn what any judge rules.

Barney Frank, the retired Massachusetts Democrat who was one of the authors of the law that created the CFPB, told CNN on Monday that Trump and Republicans were seeking to weaken the agency in an administrative fashion, rather than legislative, because it was popular for its work standing up to banks, mortgage companies, loan companies and debt collectors on behalf of ordinary Americans.
The CPFB, he said, was “fighting the big interests on the battlefield every day”.

Dem Senator Dick Durbin perhaps put it best in terms of Mulvaney, Wall Street and the CFPB:

"Wall Street hates it like the devil hates holy water,” Durbin said. “And they’re trying to put an end to it.”

And those of us who've studied the Malleus Malleficarum know that the "Devil" needs  demons to do his dirty work for him. That, of course, is where Mick Mulvaney comes in - keeping our analogies straight.

See also:

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/141394/meet-mick-mulvaney-trump-goon-wants-poor-kids-go-hungry

Wells Fargo Bankster Hustle Shows Dodd-Frank Is Toothless To Protect Customers

Recall five months ago I referred to a  WSJ piece in which the author (Donna Borak)  made clear Bernie Sanders knew exactly what he was talking about re: reining in the banksters. Further,  it was the outside media and Neolib hacks (like Barney Frank)  that made a right mess of it.  Thus, to quote the article on  the authority the government could use to break up the big banks, we learned:

"Mr. Sanders said a bill he introduced in May, 2015 would give the Treasury Secretary authority to break up big banks but leave it to the institutions to figure out how to restructure"


Further details (ibid.):

"Under his plan, The Financial Stability Oversight Council, headed by the Treasury Secretary  - would have 90 days to compile a list of banks deemed too big to fail,  The list automatically would include institutions like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Citigroup Inc, Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley

Now in retrospect we see how prescient Bernie was as the Wells Fargo bankster scam has unfolded. For those who have lived under a rock, or don't follow finance stories, let me summarize: Wells Fargo's banker honchos - including top bankster banana John Stumpf (recently grilled by the Senate Banking Committee) set ridiculous sales quotas for retail bank employees which led to millions of sham accounts set up (in customers' names)  that customers knew nothing about. In some cases, as many as 7-8 accounts per bank customer were set up which dinged the owners with multiple bank fees. It was only after going through statements they became aware of how they'd been played.

Former employees quoted in a recent (Sept. 17) NY Times Business piece affirmed the "biggest problem was Wells Fargo's aggressive sales culture which was nurtured and honed over decades at the bank's highest levels."

In other words the scam bank "buck" can be parked right at Stumpf's door.

According to one former bank employee, Sharif Kellogg, based at a Wells'  branch in Catonsville, MD:

"The branch managers were always asking: How many solutions did you sell today? They wanted three to four a day. In my mind that was crazy. That's not how people's financial lives work."

Which is exactly true. Indeed, wifey and I have been customers at a local Wells Fargo branch for over the past 13 years, and although offered "deals" we never at any time had more than a limited number of accounts, including CDs.   I'd estimate the  grand total over all that time would have been six at the most, and currently only three including a CD.  It's hard enough to keep track of a few accounts far less ten running at a time as some Wells cusstomers were faced with

For his part, Kellogg- referenced above - was constantly hounded by his branch supervisor to increase his sales or "solutions" as they were known. Quoted in the Times he said:

"I was always being written up for failing to bump up my soloutions numbers"

And this happened to a guy earning only $11.75 an hour. Yet it was these lower grade employees who bore the brunt of the 5,300 layoffs. This is while the honchos that engineered it  are still sitting pretty with their mammoth multi-million dollar bonuses, stock perks and paid vacations for getting employees to sell shit to those who don't need or want it.

Wells'  chief executive John Stumpf actually had the chutzpah to deny the misdeeds were  the result of an aggressive sales culture or flawed inncenitve structure. But that would carry about the same credibility as me - when I taught space physics - claiming that assigning 15 labs and  15 projects per week would not entice students to cheat. No one with half a brain would buy such flagrant BS and no one ought to buy Stumpf's either.

In fact, under corporate criminal law - all Stumpf's posturing aside-  Wells Fargo is strictly liable for the criminal behavior of its employees acting within the scope of its sales business.

The really ironic aspect of this whole shameful farce? The bank employees were given ethics training and it insisted they adhere to high standards. According to one Wells teller writing in a Reddit forum:

"We go through SO much training about ethics and how you CANNOT do that. I got threatened to be fired as a teller because I wasn't meeting my numbers. I told them I didn't believe in trying to convince someone to spend money they don't have to get what they don't need."

And yet this employee, with high ethical principles, was found expendable because she merely refused to play the bank's aggressive profiteering game.

Wells' fired workers, for their part, actually managed to get some digs in at these bankster assholes using creative (youtube) cartoon videos, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vzGeEtKbCI


Most are spoofs of the banksters'  hard driving "gimme my profits" culture and the fact ordinary workers were hardly getting rich meeting their bosses' specious hyper-sales targets. In one video, a cartoon banker drones on: "If tellers and bankers make those sales numbers each day, at the end of the month everybody in the branch gets a $5 gift card to McDonald's and the district managers gets a $10,000 cash bonus."

If it wasn't so damned pathetic you'd have to laugh.

Incredibly, as federal prosecutors are considering bringing charges, you have the spectacle of assholes like Stumpf giving false apologies and accepting "accountability" for lower echelon workers "misinterpreting sales goals".

That's really generous of this profiteering renegade, but how about him foregoing all his pay for the next  five years and returning all bonuses? Then giving the monies to the discharged lower rung Wells' workers? Of course, that would never fly. Neither the existing shredded banking laws, nor the high status exec culprits have the capacity or the honor.

What has happened is that Wells  has been fined $185 m - which is chicken feed to these guys. The bank also agreed last week  to develop a "broad oversight program" for its sales practices in a settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. According to Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Esher, the "bank had considered this step for quite some time before finally deciding to eliminate the sales goals".

Why Wells would have to take "quite some time" to even consider robbery incentives for sales goals is beyond me. But perhaps the honcho banksters live in a different moral universe from the one I and  millions of other Americans inhabit. We don't possess all copper- -lined bathtubs e.g.

But we do know right from wrong.

And we wouldn't need harsh lectures by Senate Banking firebrand Elizabeth Warren. Sen. Warren, had she'd been nominated as Veep (as most of us suggested), would have saved Hillary's bacon with millennial voters (now turning to the 3rd party candidates.)

The best part of the Banking Committee session with John Stumpf was Sen. Warren raking the sleazy bastard over the coals, saying in part:

"You squeezed your employees to the breaking point so they would cheat customers and you could drive up the value of your stock and put hundreds of millions of dollars in your own pocket...Your definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low level employees.... This is about accountability. You should resign. You should give back the money that you took while this scam was going on and you should be criminally investigated. This just isn't right!"

Spoken like a person who actually looks out for citizens. But again, that requires having a moral imperative as opposed to money grubbing über alles ethics.. Don't look for a rat-faced bastard like Stumpf to follow any of her injunctions. This is a character with the morals of a leech.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/69054/how-to-take-on-the-banksters

Excerpt:

"the truth of the matter is that cross-selling isn't meant to be good for customers. It's meant to inflate stock prices, and consequently enrich investors and executives, like Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf himself."

The "Bernie Doesn't Know Banking" Kerfuffle - A Pile Of Media Rot!

Bernie had given the media all they needed to know about his plan to break up the banks but they were too fucking dumb to grasp it.

"Bernie Sanders Is Ignorant!", "Sanders Couldn't Give Straight Answers On Breaking Up the Banks!", Sanders Don't Know Nuttin'! And so the yapping talking heads went on and on...and on..with even Queen Hillary chirping in that Bernie didn't seem to know what he was talking about- in an interview with the New York Daily News.  Except he did! But what the fuck does the corporate media know? In fact, not much - so why would you get your news from them unless you can corroborate it independently?

Thankfully, the "Sanders doesn't get it" canard was blown to shit last night when Robert Reich appeared on a fiery Chris Hayes' segment of All In, in which he faced down blabber mouth and Hillary supporter Barney Frank about the Sanders' interview.  Blustering clown Barney had the nerve to opine that Sanders "despite 25 years in congress has very little to show for it" topping off his bit by trying to denigrate one of the most productive members of all, unlike Barney. As Richard Eskow put it in his blog post today (see end link):

"Frank told Slate that Bernie Sanders “has been in Congress for 25 years with little to show for it in terms of his accomplishments.” Really? The VA has hired over 14,000 new doctors, nurses, and medical staff a result of Sanders’ work on that bill alone, and the backlog in disability claims has been reduced by nearly 90 percent.  In 2002, Sanders introduced an amendment in the House that blocked the Bush Administration from implementing a rule allowing companies to cut the pensions of older workers by as much as 50 percent.

“Little to show”? That amendment protected the pensions of countless American workers. And, through compromise and negotiation, Sanders eventually passed another amendment that helped 130,000 IBM workers regain $320 million in pension benefits."

So we knew from the get go Barney Frank is full of it which is why it was more than gratifying when Robert Reich bitch-slapped him, arguing forcefully that Sanders knew exactly what he was talking about, it was the media that fucked it all up. (A point I will get to in a bit citing a WSJ report on p. A4 today,  'Sanders Outlines Plan on Big Banks').

Thus, despite Frank's daft claims  Bernie did , in fact, deliver clear and specific responses in his interview, it was just that the hapless corporate media was unable to parse the subtle differences, i.e. between an actual bill he had put up and Federal Reserve oversight - which is a separate matter.  Since Bernie wasn't exactly clear on the issue of Fed oversight - why the fuck should he be since he isn't a Federal Reserve board member-  the stupid media blew a gasket. (Besides,  the Fed's minutes are concealed until 6 months after meetings are held). But none of this was processed so all we heard was: "Oh he knows nothing!"  Blah, blah, and blah.

Frank tried to make a sophist's case that Reich (and Sanders) were wrong, but looked more like an arrogant school boy trying to argue with Michelson and Morley about whether their famous experiment proved the ether existed (it didn't) and ended up looking like an ass.

Robert further took blabbering Barney to task by citing the fact the big banks now control an even bigger share of banking (43%) than they did in '08. As he put it so Barney could understand, if they control an even bigger share now why are they not too big to fail now while they were back then?

Barney hemmed and hawed and used the specious argument that well, it isn't a matter of sheer size per se but rather how much leverage or debt they have, i.e. in relation to capital But anyone who's followed the banking stories in The Financial Times or the WSJ's 'Money & Investing' section the past 6 months would have seen how the 5 largest banks, including Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase often reached debt to capital ratios of 20:1 or more. So hey, there IS a correlation between size and leverage!

Barney also bloviated about Sanders "forgetting or not mentioning the Glass-Steagall bill" - which had been repealed in 1999 and paved the way for mixing commercial and investment banking.  I guess Frank was trying to insinuate Bernie was getting senile or ought to have brought up G-S if he really wanted to venture into banking. But as Reich pointed out, that's all the hell Bernie has been doing the past year!

In the WSJ piece cited, the author makes clear Sanders knew exactly what he was talking about and again, it was the outside media that made a right mess of it.  Thus, to quote the article on  the authority the government could use to break up the big banks, we learn:

"Mr. Sanders said a bill he introduced in May, 2015 would give the Treasury Secretary authority to break up big banks but leave it to the institutions to figure out how to restructure"

Now, if the WSJ's Donna Borak could get this, why not the pissants and knuckleheads in the rest of the media? Well,  because they have such a boner to take Sanders down they don't want to get it! (Though they actually may not have the IQs necessary either. We can't omit that factor!)

Further details (ibid.):

"Under his plan, The Financial Stability Oversight Council, headed by the Treasury Secretary  - would have 90 days to compile a list of banks deemed too big to fail,  The list automatically would include institutions like JP Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Citigroup Inc, Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley"

Again, seems clear enough to me. The only reason, in fact, any politico or news media concern would take issue with it and distort it - as they did - is if those same big banks are some of their big money donors, OR their hotshots sit on their corporate boards and interlocking directorates. Which, in fact, was shown by Robert McChesney as long ago as 1995 in the Project Censored Yearbook ('The News That Didn't Make The News And Why') ..At that time, McChesney showed that 11 mass media conglomerates (including the Washington Post Company) "have directorships interlocking with 144 of the Fortune 1000 companies."  Those included banks, by the way, and since banks size and influence has grown you can imagine what it is now.

Further details, mainly for those media charlatans who need their brains jacked up:

"After drawing up the list, the Treasury Secretary - in consultation with the firm's regulator would have one year to make sure the banks break themselves up so that a failure wouldn't require a taxpayer bailout to avoid  big blow to the U.S. or global economy."

Again, one fails to see exactly what it was the MSM didn't get?

Now, the key difference with the Dodd-Frank bill:

"Mr. Sanders's'  proposal differs from the 2010 Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul in two significant ways. His plan would give the authority to break up the banks to the administration through the Treasury Secretary, and it leaves the decision on how to break up the banks to the institutions themselves, not the Federal Reserve,"

Now again, if Ms. Borak could get the details right, why not the other media stalwarts, who preferred to rush to judgment and end up looking like asses. (Ok, truthfully, Bernie's spokespersons and many of us who blog are trying to clean up the mess the MSM left in its rush to ignore facts and details - but which were readily available - if they'd had the motivation to look as Ms. Borak did.

Finally, blustering Barney made a big to-do over Bernie not specifying the "limits" for breakup, $50 billion, $500 billion or whatever, But he didn't because he wasn't using the Dodd-Frank standard which forces banks to create living wills in case they go bankrupt. Thus, Dodd-Frank calls on the Fed to force banks with $50b or more in assets to draw up credible bankruptcy plans or "living wills". Failure to write a proper plan opens the bank up to regulators capping its size or limiting activities. Bernie's plan leaves it to the Treasury Secretary's discretion to identify the problem banks (too big to fail") and the banks themselves to carry out the  actual break ups - specifying whatever limits they want.

Easy peasy!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/66773/barney-vs-bernie-sanders-is-the-real-progressive-who-gets-things-done