Courtesy of Pam Martens
Richard Cordray Officially Took the Helm at the CFPB on July 17, 2013
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Last Wednesday, Richard Cordray, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), announced he would be stepping down from his post at the end of this month. Cordray is the former Attorney General of Ohio and there are rumors he may make a run for Governor there.
The CFPB, a Federal agency, was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010. The legislation resulted from the greatest fraudulent wealth transfer from the middle class to the 1 percent since the Wall Street frauds of the late 1920s. Both periods ended in an epic financial crash that left the U.S. economy on life support. Since the financial crash of 2008, the U.S. economy has grown at an anemic 2 percent or less per year despite massive fiscal stimulus and unprecedented bond purchases (quantitative easing) by the Federal Reserve.
Despite the desperate need for the CFPB, Republicans fought against its creation and then refused to confirm Cordray for his post as Director for two years. Cordray was finally sworn in on July 17, 2013 after having served in the post for 18 months under a recess appointment by President Obama. Republicans have continued to battle Cordray and attempt to derail his work in protecting vulnerable consumers from credit card, student loan and mortgage frauds.
Big banks on Wall Street are particularly hostile to the fact that the CFPB allows consumers who have been victimized by financial firms, even where small amounts of money are involved, to file a complaint and receive a timely response. Wall Street also hates the fact that these complaints go into a permanent database, which can be mined by class-action attorneys and prosecutors looking for patterns of fraud. That database is likely to be one of the first things to go under a Trump appointee.
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