The Hill reports that the Mick Mulvaney has chosen Brian Johnson to be the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's acting deputy director. Johnson had previously served as the CFPB’s principal policy director. He had been hired by Mulvaney last year to rein in and rebrand the controversial regulator. The full article is here.
Leandra English has announced that she is leaving the CFPB next week in light of the nomination of a new director. Her attorney, CL&P blogger Deepak Gupta, has said that he will intends to file papers next week "to bring the litigation to a close."
Susan Block-Lieb of Fordham has written Cities as a Source of Consumers’ Financial Empowerment, 34 Emory Bankruptcy Developments J. 388 (2018). Here's the abstract: Although cities are a poor place to situate consumer protection regulation, especially “top down” efforts to “command and control” lending decisions, they are an especially good source of consumer “empowerment” initiatives. Consumer […]
The Washington Post recently reported on a phenomenon I had not previously been aware of: mass-mailing checks to strangers, that when cashed become high-interest loans. As a trainee at one firm described it, "basically a way of monetizing poor people." The article is here.
That's explained by columnist Michael Hiltzik in Trump's own figures show that Obamacare is working well for the vast majority of enrollees: President Trump brags that he has “gutted” the Affordable Care Act, but statistics released this week by his own Department of Health and Human Services show that it’s holding up well against his onslaught, […]
Our readers are likely aware of the recent controversy about plastic straws. They are bad for the environment (go, for instance, here and here). Seattle recently banned their use (along with the use of plastic utensils) at bars and restaurants. As one advocacy group puts it: Plastic straws are really bad for the ocean. We use over 500 million every day in […]
The Regulatory Review has this article.
by Jeff Sovern Here. Kavanaugh, of course, took the position in PHH that the CFPB is unconstitutional as currently structured. Whether other potential nominees would have felt differently if they had decided PHH is unknown.
by Jeff Sovern I don't often agree with J.W. Verret of George Mason, who formerly served as chief economist and counsel to Jeb Hensarling's House Financial Services Committee. But his warnings on CFPB director-nominee Kathy Kraninger deserve attention. Now he has written an op-ed for the National Review, Kathy Kraninger Is the Wrong Choice to Lead […]
by Paul Alan Levy In Hassell v. Bird, the California Supreme Court held this morning, by a narrow margin of four votes to three, that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects Yelp against an injunction compelling it to comply with an injunction that had previously been issued against a Yelp user who had […]