Banking and Credit
Since the Great Depression, Congress has passed a series of laws to preserve stability in the banking and credit industries, protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices and make affordable credit available to middle class and low-income families and small businesses. Beginning in the 1980s, the deregulation of financial institutions has fed speculative booms and devastating busts. Privatization of low-cost government credit for student loans and mortgages and weaker consumer protections has driven up the cost of credit and put consumers at risk.
Commentary
Information is power… and that’s the problem
Why #OccupyWallStreet?
Cry Wolf Quotes
The problem with the Community Reinvestment Act is not its goals but its vagueness and ambiguity that have led to a nightmare of documentation, paperwork and formalized process that diverts bankers' time and bank resources from being utilized to serve our communities… we need to build a system of supervision and enforcement that encourages creativity and substance in community reinvestment lending.
CRA has enabled special interest groups to collect billions of dollars from banks under agreements that are kept secret. Even the citizens that these groups purport to represent have no way of knowing how the groups spend the money they get from banks. That s why I hope the Senate will approve a sunshine amendment that will add accountability to this process and bring these agreements into, the light of day.
You're wrong in stating where the problem came from. The problem came from this notion that everybody in America had a right to a house whether they could ever afford to pay their loan back. That's what the Community Reinvestment Act was all about.
The CRA, by encouraging loosening underwriting standards, may have contributed to the massive increase in foreclosure rates.
Related Laws and Rules
Evidence
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Banking Lobby's Warnings About CARD Act Disproven
What happened after credit card reform bill passed Congress in 2009 (it worked).
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The Successes of the CARD Act
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes exactly what the act did and what the effects were one year later.
Backgrounders & Briefs
A Timeline of the CARD Act
An interactive timeline of credit card reform.
Resources
The National Community Reinvestment Coalition works against unfair lending and banking practices, particularly those targeted towards low and middle income families.
