Americans are heading to the pawn shops to sell their gold jewelery.

The Wall Street Journal doesn’t tell us.  They are only focused on industry:

 Wells Fargo & Co. shelled out more on lobbying than any other financial firm, surpassing J.P. Morgan Chase, which had the top spot in 2010. Wells Fargo’s lobbying expenditures nearly doubled to $1.9 million during the first quarter from $1 million in the same period a year ago. A Wells Fargo spokeswoman declined to comment.

—————————–

Still, many institutions remain focused on Congress. Disclosures for lobbyists working for the Community Financial Services Association, which represents the payday-lending industry, show the it has only lobbied Congress. A spokeswoman for the group declined to comment.

According to disclosures, the trade group spent $590,000 during the first quarter, primarily on Dodd-Frank and the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The law set up the CFPB and gave it broad powers to regulate large payday lenders. Republicans have introduced several bills to weaken the bureau’s powers.

There is a dearth of news today, so expect light blogging.    Have a great Easter.

MarketWatch’s Al Lewis is enamored with Elizabeth Warren. From the story: 

Anybody who says Warren is “controversial” has got to be a lending industry huckster or have a member of Congress in their back pocket. Who else opposes forthright disclosures to borrowers? Who else avoids questions like “What is the price?” “Can a borrower afford it?” or “Can a borrower get a better deal somewhere else?’”

But I’m not sure I understand the point of this meandering, strident Huffington Post column comparing financial literacy to the civil rights era.

Bank credit has undoubtedly tightened, thus the so called ‘weak’ loan demand. It should read, banks are only making loans to people who will pay them back. WFC’s provisioning has dropped from $5B/Q to $2B/Q.
It’s a good thing.
How soon we forget the nightmare that was 2008.
The real problem…is the continuing outsourcing of American jobs and, of course, the mind-numbing US debt & deficits.

The Wall Street Journal has a funny story on all the new acronyms conjured up by financial reform:

The financial overhaul of the 1930s first brought in a slew of acronyms now part of today’s financial fabric—FDIC, SEC, FHLB and FHA. But the acronyms created by the recent Dodd-Frank Act means anyone hoping to understand the biggest financial overhaul in almost 80 years will need a language tutor.

———————

Jargon purists, who prefer acronyms to Eagles songs, can find particularly rich pickings in the dozens of new rules affecting swaps, futures and options. A round-table event held by regulators last fall invited the public—”seating on a first-come, first-served basis”—to discuss DCOs, DCMs, SDs, MSPs, SEFs and SB SEFs.

The Treasury Department is trying to convince community bankers that Dodd-Frank was good for them: 

Neal Wolin, the deputy Treasury secretary, methodically took on critics of the legislation’s impact on community banks in his post, saying Dodd-Frank will allow community banks to be on “more equal footing with their competitors.”

“The lawmakers who drafted the Dodd-Frank Act took great care to protect and strengthen the country’s rich network of community banks, helping to ensure that we avoid the concentration that exists in the banking sectors of so many other countries which are dominated by just a handful of very large institutions,” Wolin wrote. 

For this country to be economically strong, banks need to be strong.  From the story: 

Like many large banks, Wells Fargo is struggling to grow amid weak loan demand and new regulations that reduce fees from debit cards and overdraft charges. Wells Fargo’s large jump in profits is largely the result of improvements in credit quality. While the bank is setting aside less money to cover loan losses, loan demand remains tepid, making growth difficult.

Not sure I’m buying it.  From the New York Times:

Actually, Jamie Dimon Now Likes New Consumer Bureau

By BEN PROTESS

Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive.

Jamie Dimon, it turns out, has a soft spot for the government’s new consumer financial bureau.

“We need to create a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is effective for both consumers and banks,” Mr. Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said in his April 4 letter to shareholders.

Yes, this is the same Mr. Dimon who last month complained that various new rules facing Wall Street “would damage America.” And it is the same JPMorgan that (unsuccessfully) lobbied lawmakers to kill plans for an independent consumer financial agency.

The hostility was all just a misunderstanding, Mr. Dimon said.