The Bank Lobby's Insane Assault on Consumer Protection

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http://www.alternet.org/workplace/141383/the_bank_lobby%27s_insane_assault_on_consumer_protection/


The Bank Lobby's Insane Assault on Consumer Protection
By Zach Carter, AlterNet. Posted July 20, 2009.

Even after causing millions of foreclosures and the worst recession since the 1930s, the bank lobby is still trying to screw us.

Without question, the most important part of President Barack Obama's new plan for financial regulation is the creation of a special regulator to protect consumers.

If the administration's plan goes through, the existing sieve of consumer protections in the financial world will finally be consolidated into a single agency that answers only to consumers, not bank balance sheets. Anyone who sells financial products to consumers, from the lowliest mortgage brokers to high-flying Wall Street elites, will finally have to play by a single, fair set of rules.

You might think that after watching predatory mortgage lending drive the entire global economy off a cliff, the bank lobby would try to keep a low profile during the debate. But you would be wrong.

The bank lobby, led by the terrifyingly powerful American Bankers Association, is in full-on attack mode. And while Big Finance has several aspects of the Obama overhaul in its sights, it's fighting hardest against the new consumer regulator. The ABA has already launched a barrage of money, distortions, contradictions and outright lies in an attempt to protect its inalienable right to pillage our pocketbooks.
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