foreclosure defense

By Adam Levin

The Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to prevent President Obama from appointing Elizabeth Warren, Raj Date (or frankly anyone other than the ghost of Adam Smith or Old Man Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life”) to be the Director of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless and until Democratic leaders agree to essentially defang the agency and permit Congressional oversight and authorization of its budget. He has convinced 44 of his closest Republican friends in the Senate to go along with him.

The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you know, the guys who are always looking out for the American consumer, has stated that the CFPB is “the most powerful agency ever created” and pretty much implied that Congress may have to destroy it to save his village. It seems crazy that more than a year after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act that created it, and weeks before it officially opens its doors, the CFPB must continue to justify and defend itself, given the financial FUBAR confronting our nation. However, as long as Sen. McConnell and his colleagues are intent on taking the disruptive course and have a platform to do it, we must continue to point out why there is a very real need for the agency and that efforts to kill it are counter-productive for our country and our economy. So, here we go again.

[Related article: Consumer Protection Fight Erupts Into Allegations of Lying]

This weekend I had the privilege of interviewing Holly Petraeus, the newly appointed head of the Office of Service Member affairs of the CFPB, on my weekly radio show on LA station KFWB (AM 980), about how she intends to protect our military families against those financial predators who profit from the distractions of their deployment and the vulnerabilities of their financial illiteracy. Her mission, while critical to our national defense and our economy, is but one of a number of vitally important tasks charged to the CFPB.

Like Elizabeth Warren, Mrs. Petraeus is a dedicated, brilliant, doggedly-determined consumer advocate who has spent much of her life protecting the men and women who defend our nation. She is 4th-generation military and her husband, General David Petraeus, was the commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, runs the war in Afghanistan and is about to become the next Director of the CIA. You’d think Senator McConnell and his minions wouldn’t want to mess with her. Unfortunately, the fact that she isn’t a politician and is singularly focused on the demanding job of protecting men and women in uniform from economic vultures is sadly working in the Senator’s favor. She’s so busy protecting people that she doesn’t have time to justify her work protecting people.

[Resource: Get your free Credit Report Card]

The message that seems to be lost on those who oppose the CFPB is that we are in as much of a dogfight on the domestic front as we are with terrorists around the world. We are at war against financial predators and financial illiteracy. And the rules of engagement are as muddy in Maine, New York, Kentucky, Indiana, Montana and California as they are half a world away, because it’s getting harder to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys.

Every day, American consumers, military and civilian alike, are being viciously attacked by those who would take advantage of our lack of financial skills, scam us and steal our identities. Every day, we learn of new abuses by financial institutions (loan modification programs that deceive and destroy, foreclosure mills that have shifted into overdrive again and fee frenzy part two), the breach of the week (SONY, Epsilon, Citibank, Bank of America, the IMF and the U.S. Senate to name a few) and the seeming powerlessness of government to do anything about it (the HAMP Program has been a disaster, the economy is sliding south again and hackers are running wild).

“Hoenig: restrict bank activities to Core Services”

Hoeing is the president of the KC Federal Reserve Bank. The paper seems to be written in a way that a lay person understands (e.g. I seemed to understand it). The following passage is a perfect example since it gives crystal clear arguments that can be used to justify dismantling of the TBTF institutions. Although the arguments are not new (I’ve read similar arguments presented on this site at various times), they along with the other observations and conclusions make it worth your time reading the paper. The following passage starts on page 14-

“From Critics of restricting bank activities argue it would reduce the economies of scale and scope that are critical for the largest banks to be successful in global markets and that large corporations want one-stop shopping for their financial services. These arguments, however, are not persuasive.

- First, there is no strong evidence of economies of scale. There are many conceptual and empirical problems with studies of economies of scale.

- Second, there is even less evidence of economies of scope. Nevertheless, older studies from the 1990s show that there are no economies of scale when banks are larger than about $250 million in assets, although the threshold is likely to be higher in today’s economy because of inflation and advancements in information technology. In fact, a more recent study from the mid-2000s suggests there are economies of scale for the largest banking organizations, but the results are highly questionable because there are so few banks at the sizes in question and the study uses data prior to the problems that banks had during the financial crisis.

- Third, large corporations would still be able to do one-stop shopping for commercial and traditional investment banking services, although they would have to go to securities dealers to purchase swaps and other derivatives for hedging purposes. In fact, there is evidence that multiple functions of large, complex banks actually increase systemic risk and anecdotal evidence that if bank activities are restricted as suggested here, a nonbank financial industry would emerge and thrive.

- Finally, even if there are economies of scale or scope, it does not necessarily mean that banks should be allowed to continue to conduct all of their current activities. Whether they should depends on comparing the marginal benefits from the reduced private costs of operation to the social costs associated with financial crises. Given the large costs of the 2007-9 crisis, the efficiencies and cost benefits of size and scope would need to be extremely large.

Critics of restricting activities also question how we would go about divesting the prohibited activities. The divestitures that were required by the Glass-Steagall Act and the breakup of AT&T in the 1980s suggest that divestitures can be conducted in an orderly manner in a relatively short period of time.

Critics of restricting activities also are concerned that it would cause two major problems for U.S. banks because they would face a competitive disadvantage relative to universal banks, mostly from Europe, that are allowed to conduct the full range of activities.

- One problem is it would drive U.S. banks to move to other countries. However, it seems highly improbable that any other country would be willing or able to expand its safety net to new large and complex banking organizations.

- Second, the competitive disadvantage of U.S. banks would lower their franchise values, which would provide an incentive to take even greater risks to raise lost revenues and maintain ROEs. However, the virtue of restricting activities is that it is easier for the supervisors and the market to detect and punish excessive risk taking.”

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