by Jeff Sovern
Here. Excerpt:
I talked to [Jim] Purcell [of State National Bank in Big Spring] this week. He says the bureau spreads its tentacles too far. He complains that there's no appeal for the bureau's decisions, that it's too independent of Congress and the president (by design, and for obvious reasons, I might add) and "It needs controls."
"As far as protecting consumers, I think consumers need some protection. But I also think consumers have some culpability on their part," he says. "And they shouldn't be bailed out for bad decisions all the time either."
A problem with this argument is that financial institutions, which know so much more than consumers, have steered consumers to make bad decisions that profit the banks and hurt consumers.
