In spite of President Trump’s ostensible Supreme Court victory in asserting his authority over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, some of his allies have lamented the missed opportunity to euthanize the hated Elizabeth Warren in independent agency form like that other misbegotten measure of the Dodd-Frank law, the Volcker Rule. And, depending on what should happen in November, they are perhaps right to worry.
But, in the meantime, Kathy Kraninger & co. are, like their colleagues elsewhere, making the most of the time they’ve got left to them, phantasmagorically continuing the transformation a body whose name dedicates it to protecting consumers into one protecting those preying on consumers.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday formally rescinded a plan to impose new limits on payday lending….. Those loans can leave borrowers trapped in cycles of debt, incurring fees every few weeks to replenish loans they cannot afford to pay off…. Trump appointees were so determined to eliminate the rule that they manipulated the agency’s research process to steer it toward their predetermined outcome, a bureau employee claimed in an internal memo reviewed by The New York Times.