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Hugh,

It’s been a long time since I have written, but there has been so many more important issues – Afghanistan, Cap and trade, and Obamacare.  Running a bank remains a real challenge in this economy.  While the headlines have gone away the problem loans remain.  Individuals, small businesses, and commercial real estate are all fighting hard to keep current on their loans.  On top of that the regulators are being extremely tough.  They dread the hindsight of the Inspector General and so requiring more and more capital and slapping formal agreements on banks, which make it difficult for the bank to raise capital and deposits.

The primary purpose for writing is to raise alarms about the administrations efforts to enact the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) (H.R. 3126).  This is another effort by Obama to take control of a significant portion of the economy.  This bill not only covers banks but also tax preparers, credit card companies, title insurers, mortgage companies, financial advisors, data processors of financial information, credit bureaus, and any other activity that the agency defines as a financial activity to be covered by the act!

This effort to take control of financial companies is the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law professor.  Currently, the professor is the head of the Congressional Oversight Committee.  She is modeling the act after the Consumer Products Safety Commission because, “(t)his crisis started with the cheating of American families, and [solving it] has to begin there, too.”  We all know how that commission had made products better!  Professor Warren is being assisted in her effort by Heather Booth and Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of groups including ACORN, SEIU, MoveOn.org, and many others invested in Community Investment Act activities.

If enacted, the CFPA would severely harm financial providers and consumers.  The agency would be controlled by five appointees, one of whom is head of the national bank regulator.  There is no real check or balance on the others (Warren is likely to be the Chairman).  The agency would have sole authority to make and interpret regulations under existing consumer finance and fair lending laws.  The agency would have broad examination and information gather authority.  The CFPA would ban mandatory arbitration clauses.

The proposed agency would have the authority to define standard products and services (“plain vanilla”).  The agency could require companies to offer these products and if they offer alternative products they could be subject to enhanced scrutiny.  (The agency has very broad enforcement powers.)  Further, the agency can dictate disclosure and marketing practices, in effect have broad authority over consumer advertising by the financial services industry.

It gets even worse.  The law opens up financial services companies to litigation by every state attorney general and the tort bar.

This is an effort to do to financial service what they want to do to the healthcare.  Through a panel of five people, they want to control financial services, determine what services are to be provided, how those services are to be delivered, and at a cost they determine.  None of this has anything to do with the causes of the financial crisis of 2008, but rather it is the use of a crisis to take control of another large chunk of the economy.

Barney Frank’s committee begins hearings on the bill today.  I’ll try to keep you posted.

You can contact me at BankerGuy2009@gmail.com

"Through their popular uprising, the Iranian people have mounted the most serious challenge to the Islamic Republic in its 30-year history,"writes John Hannah, former national security advisor to Vice President Cheney, in the Weekly Standard. "The regime is frightened and confused, on the defensive, never closer to unraveling. The United States should do nothing that needlessly risks relieving that pressure and giving comfort to Iran's rulers. At a minimum, speaking up loudly about human rights will increase U.S. leverage in any forthcoming negotiation. At maximum, it could help sustain a movement whose ultimate success in toppling Iran's anti-American theocracy holds out the best hope of ending the nuclear crisis short of war."

The president is making noises about abandoning Afghanistan even as he spends hours trying to resurrect a disastrous health care policy fiasco.  His approval ratings are plummeting to near first-year Clinton levels, and he has so overplayed his media cards that he may be down to the county fair circuit soon.

What the president should be is focused and firm on the four big three issues of his presidency: Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq abroad, and domestic security at home.  (The outlines of the latest plot that are emerging should refocus not just the president but the country on the fact that the radical jihadists didn't get their motivation from President Bush.)

President Obama's speech to the U.N. offers him a chance to reset his foreign policy to "serious" and to warn the mullahs that he will not cooperate in their attempts to shore up their regime.  If he speaks to the Iranians seeking freedom, he will have earned a great deal of bipartisan respect.

But if he glides over the Iranian regime's thuggishness and its evil ambitions vis-a-vis Israel and the world, he'll have branded his foreign policy as appeasement's second act. 

This video made the rounds on Facebook over the weekend.  It's worth watching. Lizzie Palmer put this together after seeing the country obsess over the death of Michael Jackson.

That very haunting music throughout is called Pacific Wind by Ryan Farish. As we continue to battle here at home over Obamacare, as we cover the ACORN scandals, as we continue to try and block cap and trade legislation, criticize the reduction of our nuclear arsenal and removal of the missile defense system in Eastern Europe, we must continue to remember the men and women in harm's way fighting for us to have the freedom to have a voice in what kind of country we are to be.

Well done, Lizzie.

Heard at Two Conferences: Global Unease about the Obama Administration

By Clark S. Judge, managing director, White House Writers Group in Washington and former Special Assistant and Speechwriter to President Reagan

As luck would have it, for the last ten days, just as the Obama Administration was upending America’s global relationships, I was in Europe and attended two conferences on international politics.  Together these conferences gave a good cross section of opinion about Mr. Obama and the U.S. in policy centers around the world. It proved not what you would expect.
 
The first conference was the annual Global Security Review of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.  It was held in Geneva two weekends ago and brought together current and former senior foreign policy officials, journalists and scholars from around the world.
 
The second took place this past weekend in Stockholm and commemorated “The 20th Anniversary of the Liberated and Reunited Europe.” Its sponsors were the Swedish free market think tank Timbro and the Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism.  Speakers included the former prime minister of Estonia, a prominent Polish editor and fellow dissident with Lech Walesa during the Solidarity years, and the current editor-in-chief of Radio Free Europe and, with another speaker, speechwriter for Prime Minister Thatcher.  I was there to talk about President Reagan.
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