This webpage explains what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau believes it has accomplished over its first five years. Go here or click below for a CFPB video describing the purposes and (brief) history of the agency. (The video features Elizabeth Warren and Richard Cordray.)
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by Jeff Sovern Smart guns–guns that block anyone other than their owner from shooting them– would save lives. Children would not be able to grab them and shoot themselves by accident. People couldn't turn them on their owners. Smart gun technology exists, just as iPhones can be personalized using fingerprints and passcodes. But gun manufacturers won't sell […]
Michele Singletary, the Washington Post's consumer reporter, is doing a series of articles assessing the first five years of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The first in the series is an interview with the agency's director Richard Cordray.
The Fourth Circuit has struck down the N. Carolina voter I.D. law, finding that that it was conceived with discriminatory intent. The opinion is here. The court said this: In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated [the N.C. General Assembly's action], the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans […]
Law prof John Brooks has written Student Loans As Taxes. Here is the abstract: The growth of college tuition and the corresponding rise in student loan debt have become major issues of public importance. Total outstanding student debt is at least $1.3 trillion, and tuitions keep growing, even while we arguably need to invest more in […]
Law prof Margot Pollans has written Drinking Water Protection and Agricultural Exceptionalism, which you may want to read in light of the water crisis in Flint. Here's the abstract: Providing safe drinking water is a basic responsibility of government. The US system is inefficient, unfair, and sets up local water utilities to fail. Under the Safe Drinking […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today proposed new debt-collection regulations described by the agency here. The agency's press release summarizes the proposal's key provisions this way: Collect the correct debt: Collectors would have to scrub their files and substantiate the debt before contacting consumers. For example, collectors would have to confirm that they have sufficient […]
In this short essay (subscription possibly required), public-interest lawyer Arthur Bryant explains why he thinks the Supreme Court's decision in Spokeo v. Robins is good news for consumers seeking to enforce their rights to statutory damages.
The Hill reports that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Friday told phone companies that they should start providing free technology for their customers to block robocalls and spam texts. Last year, The Hill explains, the FCC told wireless carriers that they could provide robocall-blocking technology said without running afoul of any rules. […]
Time has this article, reporting that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau "has reshaped the mortgage market and issued hefty penalties. But there is much to be done."