Reining in Wall Street

For years, federal bank regulators ignored numerous warnings of increasingly predatory mortgage practices, credit card tricks, and unfair overdraft policies used by the big Wall Street banks. They also ignored warnings of risky securities being packaged and sold to investors. In the wake of the resulting financial crisis, U.S. PIRG fought to pass the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Since winning federal Wall Street reform, we’ve been working to defend those reforms from the industry’s attempts to defang, defund or delay them — in particular the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the centerpiece of the law.

We’re working to:

• Put consumers and taxpayers before big banks: Check irresponsible financial practices with new rules and stronger, independent enforcement by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
   
• Cover all players and transactions: Rein in hedge funds and reckless investments that escaped regulations and traded without oversight on “shadow markets.” 
   
• Control corporations that are “too big to fail”: Banks shouldn’t be able to freely gamble with taxpayer money covering their bets. We must rein in institutions whose risky investments threaten the larger economy.

In short, we’re fighting for a financial regulatory system that guarantees that consumers and taxpayers are protected from the predatory practices at the heart of this problem. And we need to provide consumers a seat at the table when it comes to oversight of the nation’s financial system.