Guide to Wall Street Reform
Read on to lean how Wall Street Reform can help Main Street - and how you can get involved.
PROTECTING CONSUMERS IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETPLACE
From credit cards to home mortgages to student loans to bank fees, the practices of Wall Street reach into the living rooms, dorm rooms and wallets of virtually every Oregonian, from cradle to grave.
In 2010, after the financial collapse, the subsequent multi-trillion dollar government bailout of Wall Street, and the public outcry that followed, Congress passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It was the country’s first major strengthening of financial marketplace rules in over 75 years.
The goals of the 2010 law are important: prevent a future financial meltdown and taxpayer bailout and protect consumers and investors from deceptive bank practices. For consumers, the law's centerpiece is its establishment of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Find out more about the new law, key decisions that are being decided right now, and how you can have an impact on many aspects of Wall Street reform:
HISTORY OF A CRISIS
The roots of the current financial crisis are, in large part, due to activities of Wall Street’s largest players, and a series of decisions by federal policy makers to relax long-standing bank regulations.
After the Great Crash of 1929, a set of marketplace rules were enacted to stabilize the financial markets. These rules were intended to check the more excessive impulses of Wall Street, ensure that they did not take extreme risks with their customers’ money, and provide a basic degree of protection for bank deposits.
Financial markets remained relatively stable for about fifty years. Then, about 25 years ago, Congress weakened these laws several times, causing many Wall Street banks to take on increasingly risky behavior.
Nearly 1,500 Washington, D.C. lobbyists representing Wall Street firms pushed hard against passage of the law, and its effectiveness will be determined by hundreds of decisions currently being made by little-known government agencies that are in charge of implementing the law.
And there is a similar by Wall Street lobbyists currently underway in an attempt to influence the implementation of the law.
Learn more about how you can have an impact on the implementation of Wall Street reform, from unfair bank activities to the responsible use of customers’ money
and preventing another taxpayer bailout.
Issue updates
During this time of year, families are thinking about the children going back to school, and for parents who are sending their kids to college, it can be a bit overwhelming. A key to addressing those concerns is making sure their teens are prepared for “adulting” -- in other words, taking care of their own lives.
Representatives of several leading U.S. consumer and traveler groups today met with U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Pete Buttigieg to urge action on the most pressing consumer protection priorities affecting consumers flying commercial airlines. It was the first time representatives of consumer groups were granted a meeting with a U.S. Secretary of Transportation in nearly five years.
This report recaps the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s results for consumers over the past 10 years, the steps taken to return the CFPB back to its mission after three years of retrograde decisions under the Trump Administration, and our recommendations for CFPB action moving forward.
As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) turns 10 years old, a new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund recaps how the agency has helped consumers over the past decade and the steps under way to refocus the CFPB on its mission after three years of retrograde decisions under the Trump Administration.
Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. said Wednesday it’s voluntarily recalling all lots of five types of Neutrogena and Aveeno aerosol sunscreen after internal testing showed “low levels of benzene” -- which can cause cancer -- in some samples. J&J also said consumers should stop using the sunscreen.
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