In Double Whammy for Students, Tax Proposal Would Eliminate Deductibility of Student Loan Interest Payments and Tax Some School Endowments

by Jeff Sovern So reports MarketWatch. If the bill is enacted, students will effectively have to pay more for student loans and some schools will have a harder time helping with scholarships because their endowments will be smaller than they otherwise would be.

Anticonsumer Advocates Try to Talk Trump into Firing CFPB Director Cordray

by Jeff Sovern According to a CNBC story, Trump wants to sack consumer protection chief but is afraid of turning him into hero for the left, during the signing of the resolution to rescind the CFPB arbitration rule, a session that, as far as I know, was attended only by representatives of the financial services industry, members […]

Consumerist.com ends its run

Consumerist.com posted on Monday that the website has posted its last post: This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We’re deeply proud of all the work we’ve done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. We’ve had a tremendous run as a standalone […]

American Banker Story Reports Speculation About Who Will Chair the House Financial Services Committee and Hensarling’s Future

by Jeff Sovern The American Banker ran a story, Will Hensarling's next job be in Trump administration? on a variety of matters. As for Hensarling, the story reported speculation that he might be appointed to run the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which he might prefer to leading the CFPB: "Running the CFPB is likely to be a giant […]

House Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling to Retire at End of Next Year

by Jeff Sovern So reports the Dallas Morning News. Representative Hensarling is a strong believer in the free market, despite the evidence that it doesn't always work. I hope that this does not mean Hensarling would be the president's nominee to run (ruin?) the CFPB, an agency that Hensarling has been extremely critical of (compare […]