(11-27-2017, 01:54 PM)TrivialPursuit Wrote:

(11-27-2017, 12:02 PM)TJBender Wrote: Oh man, where to begin?

The CFPB is a constant thorn in my side. They act independently of Congress, set rules that, as far as industry is concerned, might as well be laws, they continually reach outside of their jurisdiction, and they constantly get away with it. It's infuriating, and I hope Trump appoints a new head that believes in a considerably weaker CFPB that's accountable to Congress and has to ability to remove a director who's gone rogue (like Cordray did long ago).

That said, hate the CFPB as much as I do, I understand why it was created and appreciate the role it was originally created to serve. It does, in fact, serve a purpose. The big banks hate the arbitration rule for a reason: arbitration saves them billions of dollars and prevents those involved from going to the press to air their grievances. It's a win-win. The banks win disputes more often than not and avoid the negative publicity that comes with sending lawyers paid tens of millions per year to court against a guy who makes $40k and was screwed by overdraft fees that shouldn't have been charged. There are actually a lot of examples of the CFPB doing right by the American public, but its director had gone completely overboard and there was no method of replacing him.

We do need a CFPB or, if the "CFPB" brand is irreparably damaged, a successor organization to protect the interests of individuals against the big banks, payday lenders, debt collectors and anyone else with a business model that's designed to screw them. What we don't need is another CFPB director who acts without accountability and oversteps his bounds without repercussion. Reign the bureau in, restrict it to its originally designed scope and make it accountable for its actions. That fixes it.

And hopefully gets it off my back.

We don't need anything in Government that can make up its own rules arbitrarily with absolutely no oversight.

I agree that we need something like it, but nothing like it is currently.

It's unconstitutional, I have no idea why it's allowed to continue in its present state.

It's yet another element of the well-intentioned Dodd-Frank legislation that has gone way too far. The Democratic power structure didn't want to dismantle it for obvious reasons, and the Republican power structure hasn't been able to agree on the color of the sky, let alone how to tear out the overreaching parts of Dodd-Frank while leaving something more reasonable intact.

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