After political drama at consumer agency, what happens to its open investigations?

[IronLionZion]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/27/investing/cfpb-mick-mulvaney-consumer-agency/index.html

Mick Mulvaney argues the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is "trampling on capitalism" -- a problem he has promised to fix immediately.

During his first day as the watchdog agency's acting director on Monday, Mulvaney announced a 30-day freeze on new regulations so he can make sure they are not "choking off" lending. Mulvaney said he will soon be briefed on the roughly 100 lawsuits the agency is involved with.

"Anything that is discretionary we're putting a 30-day hold on," Mulvaney told reporters.

Mulvaney has long been a sharp critic of the CFPB. Now his distaste for the bureau is raising questions about what will happen to the many open investigations and lawsuits it has launched against companies and banks.

Court documents and regulatory filings show these targets include Wells Fargo (WFC), online real estate database Zillow (Z) and student loan processor Heartland Campus Solutions. The CFPB is also likely looking into other companies that have not yet disclosed the investigations.

"Rumors that I am going to set the place on fire, blow it up or lock the doors are completely false," Mulvaney said.

However, Mulvaney, who as a lawmaker voted to abolish the CFPB altogether, said President Trump wants him to "fix" the CFPB because the previous administration "went too far."

Who needs the invisible hand of the market when you have the iron fist of Trumpsters. Mick Mulvaney is going to strangle the CFPB and drown it in the bathtub.

Consumers won't be getting much protection from these predators.

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1. Republicans say CFPB is crippling the economy. Really?

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/28/news/economy/cfpb-trump-mulvaney-economy-lending/index.html?iid=hp-toplead-dom

President Trump argues that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a "disaster" that has "devastated" banks and hurt Americans by stifling loans.

Mick Mulvaney, the official Trump installed as the agency's acting director, claimed on his first day that the CFPB is "trampling on capitalism" by "strangling access" to loans.

Yet Republicans' description of the CFPB as a renegade regulator handcuffing banks doesn't match up with reality.

The CFPB has enacted rules to safeguard consumers from financial predators, but there's little evidence those rules are crippling the economy. In fact, America's banks are hauling in record profits, and households have more debt than ever before. Bank loans to businesses are also at all-time highs.

Not to mention that the U.S. economy has grown at a healthy 3% pace the past six months, and the stock market has never been higher.

"They talk about an agency that is out of control, it's a bureaucratic monster. You would think there would be some horror stories," Barney Frank, a Democratic former congressman and one of the authors of the Dodd-Frank law, which created the CFPB, told CNN on Monday.