I’ve just been informed that political pundit and author Dick Morris will be the featured speaker for CFSA’s annual conference in March.  Click here for conference details.

From SmallGovTimes.com: 

We suggest the GOP Congress should consider closing and shuttering the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection immediately upon being sworn in. (If the Bureau is even up and running at that point. Treasury Secretary Geithner has set July 21, 2011, as the deadline for the BCFP to be ready for operations. That should give the Congress ample time to cut-off any funding for the BCFP and effectively shut it down.)

It’s important that we in the industry don’t fantasize too much along these lines.  We have to deal with reality and do what we can to demonstrate to the Bureau the value of payday lending.

From Politico: 

Elizabeth Warren, President Obama’s new adviser who will oversee the creation of a consumer protection agency, said Tuesday that she “never really wanted a job here” but that she plans on completing her work because she’s been asked to.

Let’s remember this story next time Center for Responsible Lending decries industry lobbying:

The Center for Responsible Lending spent $205,000 lobbying the federal government in the second quarter as it pushed for stricter consumer protections on credit cards, mortgages payday loans and other financial products.

The advocacy group, based in Durham, N.C., also lobbied on issues including the financial overhaul legislation, debt settlement and the prohibition of abusive mortgage lending and modification practices.

The group lobbied the House, Senate, Federal Reserve, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to a form filed with the House public records office July 20.

The Dallas Morning News has this to say:

I like Elizabeth Warren . She’s really smart, did a bang-up job at the Congressional Oversight of TARP, dreamed up the notion of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and walked through the D.C. political minefield to get it enacted. And despite her critics who portray her as a flaming true-believer bent on punishing business, especially banks and Wall Street, I actually see her as person who wants to return “free” to the free market by ending, or at least, throwing some light on legal, but really deceptive,financial practices.

That said, I’m dismayed at the administration’s back door approach to get the new bureau within Treasury up and running. Warren has been named an assistant to the president and special advisor to Treasury Secretary Geithner — a procedural move that delayed likely brutal confirmation hearings on naming a permanent director of the new unit.

Of the Massachusetts congressional delegation.  From the story:

Reaction was swift and along party lines following President Obama’s appointment of Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren to oversee building a new agency to look out for consumers in their dealings with financial institutions.

While Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank hailed the president’s choice as a special adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Republican Sen. Scott Brown insisted that she be subjected to the Senate’s confirmation process.

“Senator Brown is disappointed that there was not a full and fair Senate confirmation process where Ms. Warren could have expanded on her qualifications and vision for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” said Colin Reed, Brown’s spokesman, in a statement.

Center for Responsible Lending must have opened an office there.    From the story:

More than 100 MPs have backed a campaign calling for the Government to end “legal loan sharking”, it has been revealed.

Around 107 MPs from all major parties signed an Early Day Motion calling for a cap to be put on the interest charged on some of the most expensive forms of credit.

The campaign, which is being organised by political pressure group Compass, said that although the Government has pledged to give regulators new powers to define and ban excessive interest rates on credit and store cards, it is failing to tackle the “much more pernicious” high cost credit sector.

There are 650 Members of Parliament, so I don’t think this is going anywhere.

At least according to Americans for Fairness in Lending.   (There’s a video of Elizabeth Warren as well.)

The Huffington Post takes exception to The Washington Post’s editorial posted below.   The Payday Pundit is amused.

The Washington Post isn’t happy with the Elizabeth Warren appointment.   From Sunday’s editorial: 

WE HAVE QUALMS about Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor President Obama has put in charge of setting up the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. The new body, which will have a half-billion-dollar budget and wide regulatory power over mortgages, credit cards and the like, was her brainchild. It emerged from Warren’s zealous campaign against what she called the “tricks and traps” of the banking industry, which has made her a hero to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Like many such activists, however, Ms. Warren can be simplistic and hyperbolic.

——————————————–

Mr. Obama would have been better off picking a more confirmable candidate, as some senators from his own party had urged. Even a recess appointment for Ms. Warren — which would have lasted through 2011 — would have been preferable in terms of sticking to constitutionally prescribed processes for filling federal offices. But either move would have infuriated progressives, who still dream of a full five-year term for Ms. Warren — and whose support Mr. Obama needs in November. For all intents and purposes, the president has created, and filled, a de facto directorship. This might have been in keeping with the letter of the laws, but not with their spirit.