Ed's Blog

Wall St. Computers Run Amok and More Friday Financial Follies

Friday, August 3, 2012

Consumer Program Director

Will the blowback from Wednesday's Wall Street high-speed trading crash caused by computers running amok revitalize efforts to enact a small tax on stock transactions? Meanwhile, here are the rest of the week's financial follies, finishing with a Funk #49.

Financial Reform

Friday's Financial and other Congressional Follies

Friday, July 27, 2012

By | Ed Mierzwinski

Consumer Program Director

Yesterday the U.S. House passed a bill stopping all regulations designed to promote the economy, preserve the environment or protect health, safety and pocketbooks. Meanwhile, Citibank's Sandy Weill, the man who in 1999 convinced Congress to destroy the 1932 Glass-Steagall financial protections, has changed his mind.

Financial Reform

Privacy Hawks Demand Info From Data Brokers

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

By | Ed Mierzwinski

Consumer Program Director

A bi-partisan group of members of Congress, led by the political odd couple of Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), have sent detailed information demands to a number of virtually unregulated data brokers. The firms buy and sell information gleaned from public record databases, social network sites and other sources; but unlike the Big Three credit bureaus, no one really knows what they are up to.

Consumer Protection

OCC To Payday Lenders: "We don't want you here (paraphrase)."

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

By | Ed Mierzwinski

Consumer Program Director

Good news from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the nation's national bank safety regulator, which in testimony today rejects a proposal by payday lenders to hide out at the OCC to avoid regulation by the CFPB or states. The OCC says it doesn't want to charter payday lenders, because they are "focused on consumer credit products of the very nature and character that the OCC has found unacceptable."