President Obama Highlights Tough New Consumer Protections

WHITEHOUSE.GOV ^ | June 20, 2009 | n/a

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

THE BRIEFING ROOM

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary ________________________________________________________________ EMBARGOED UNTIL 6:00 AM ET, SATURDAY, June 20, 2009

WEEKLY ADDRESS: President Obama Highlights Tough New Consumer Protections

WASHINGTON – In his weekly address, President Barack Obama explained the necessity of his proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It is clear that one of the major causes of the current economic crisis was a breakdown of oversight leading to widespread abuses in the financial world. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will have the sole job of looking out for the financial interests of ordinary Americans by banning unfair practices and enforcing the rules. This is the type of reform that will attack the causes of the current crisis and prevent further crises from taking place.

The audio and video will be available at 6:00am Saturday, June 20, 2009 at www.whitehouse.gov.

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address June 20, 2009

As we continue to recover from an historic economic crisis, it is clear to everyone that one of its major causes was a breakdown in oversight that led to widespread abuses in the financial system. An epidemic of irresponsibility took hold from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street. And the consequences have been disastrous. Millions of Americans have seen their life savings erode; families have been devastated by job losses; businesses large and small have closed their doors.

In response, this week, my administration proposed a set of major reforms to the rules that govern our financial system; to attack the causes of this crisis and to prevent future crises from taking place; to ensure that our markets can work fairly and freely for businesses and consumers alike.

We are going to promote markets that work for those who play by the rules. We’re going to stand up for a system in which fair dealing and honest competition are the only way to win. We’re going to level the playing field for consumers. And we’re going to have the kinds of rules that encourage innovations that make our economy stronger – not those that allow insiders to exploit its weaknesses for their own gain.

And one of the most important proposals is a new oversight agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It’s charged with just one job: looking out for the interests of ordinary Americans in the financial system. This is essential, for this crisis may have started on Wall Street. But its impacts have been felt by ordinary Americans who rely on credit cards, home loans, and other financial instruments.

It is true that this crisis was caused in part by Americans who took on too much debt and took out loans they simply could not afford. But there are also millions of Americans who signed contracts they did not always understand offered by lenders who did not always tell the truth. Today, folks signing up for a mortgage, student loan, or credit card face a bewildering array of incomprehensible options. Companies compete not by offering better products, but more complicated ones – with more fine print and hidden terms. It’s no coincidence that the lack of strong consumer protections led to abuses against consumers; the lack of rules to stop deceptive lending practices led to abuses against borrowers.

This new agency will have the responsibility to change that. It will have the power to set tough new rules so that companies compete by offering innovative products that consumers actually want – and actually understand. Those ridiculous contracts – pages of fine print that no one can figure out – will be a thing of the past. You’ll be able to compare products – with descriptions in plain language – to see what is best for you. The most unfair practices will be banned. The rules will be enforced.

Some argue that these changes – and the many others we’ve called for – go too far. And I welcome a debate about how we can make sure our regulations work for businesses and consumers. But what I will not accept – what I will vigorously oppose – are those who do not argue in good faith. Those who would defend the status quo at any cost. Those who put their narrow interests ahead of the interests of ordinary Americans. We’ve already begun to see special interests mobilizing against change.

That’s not surprising. That’s Washington.

For these are interests that have benefited from a system which allowed ordinary Americans to be exploited. These interests argue against reform even as millions of people are facing the consequences of this crisis in their own lives. These interests defend business-as-usual even though we know that it was business-as-usual that allowed this crisis to take place.

Well, the American people did not send me to Washington to give in to the special interests; the American people sent me to Washington to stand up for their interests. And while I’m not spoiling for a fight, I’m ready for one. The most important thing we can do to put this era of irresponsibility in the past is to take responsibility now. That is why my administration will accept no less than real and lasting change to the way business is done – on Wall Street and in Washington. We will do what is necessary to end this crisis – and we will do what it takes to prevent this kind of crisis from ever happening again.

Thank you.

[Cindy]

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdm-pZm8hoA

“Weekly Address: Financial Reform to Protect Consumers”
(Added June 19, 2009)

[Tarpon]

LOL -0- This guy is a regular schuck and jive act 24/7

Polls are connected to the economy.

[Venturer]

Shuck and Jive is all that is.

[Tarpon]

Yep, polls are connected to economy, and the economy is connected to the unemployment rate. And by now near everyone on the country knows someone who has been laid off in the last months.

No hat and cane dance act is going to change that anymore.

[television is just wrong]

as usual no substance, no jobs just higher taxes for the people left working, yea that is gonna help the recovery.

[Son House]

Obama explained the necessity of his proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency

=

Everything will cost the Consumers more

[PORD]

Consumer fraud...like his very existance, like the whole bailout, like ACORN, etc, etc, etc!

[reg45]

No one will be allowed to buy anything that is not approved by the Consumer Czar.

[nathanbedford]

Evidently the Obama administration is setting out to prohibit parties from negotiating and making contracts themselves. This will now be done by the federal government, more precisely, by an agency staffed, of course, by unelected apparatchiks who will dictate the terms on which it will be permissible for mortgagors and mortgagee's to do business with each other.

So the parties will not be permitted to settle the terms between themselves. This will be done by rules. Obama has already warned of these rules "will be enforced." It is reassuring to know that the rules will ban "unfair practices" otherwise run might be at risk of arbitrary, bureaucratic control over private commerce. (Emphasis supplied)

The president in his announcement does not tell us how the constitutional responsibility of the Congress of the United States to make laws can be constitutionally handed off to unelected bureaucrats. Nor does he tell us the standards upon which practices will be determined to be "unfair." He does not tell us if the Congress of the United States will set the standards or simply abandon the field to apparatchiks.

In view of the Supreme Court's pusillanimity in fleeing from the Chrysler bankruptcy matter, one can have no grounds to hope that the Supreme Court will intervene to save our constitutional right of contract or the doctrine of separation of powers, and much less the federal principle that states should control real property transactions, and even less that the court would have the slightest concern for the preservation of capitalism.

Here is the relevant portion of the president's comments justifying my criticism that the federal government is in the process of prohibiting parties from entering into their own contracts (emphasis supplied):

This new agency will have the responsibility to change that. It will have the power to set tough new rules so that companies compete by offering innovative products that consumers actually want – and actually understand. Those ridiculous contracts – pages of fine print that no one can figure out – will be a thing of the past. You’ll be able to compare products – with descriptions in plain language – to see what is best for you. The most unfair practices will be banned. The rules will be enforced.

[FES0844]

Consumer fraud???? He should concentrate on Medicaid & Medicare billing fraud $$$$

[babyfreep]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Thank you.

[PGalt]

We have enough “rules” Barack. Criminals don’t play by no steeenkin’ “rules”. Identify the culprits and their schemes necessary to make these new “rules” and how they broke the existing “rules”. You won’t. You can’t. Put that smoke in your lungs. Quit blowing it up our rear ends.

[Vaduz]

Americans who took on too much debt and took out loans they simply could not afford.And Obama wants to protect such actions that’s Obama all right.

[keats5]

Oh goody, a new government agency to further regulate the private sector “for our own good.”

[keats5]

Is it just me, or is Obama systematically coming out with daily sweeping legislative and administrative proposals, intermixed with a bunch of inconsequential stuff and PR overload.

He remind me of a 16 year old guy who wants to buy some condoms, but he throws in a bunch of other groceries hoping to distract the cashier.

[shalom aleichem]

True. Obama is hitting us with shock ‘n awe so we miss the real important and nasty stuff he has in store, such as total control.

I feel so “protected” as a consumer. I went to get some silver (aluminum) paint for my metal shed roof and was told EPA does allow us to sell it anymore. Then I went to get some of the good oil stain I used to use for the decks and was told the same thing. Darn EPA again. Are all of our frame structures just supposed to rot away so we can save the ozone layer? Isn’t the ozone layer OK now?

[keats5]

I wish our kids could know the freedom we grew up with. We used to ride around “untied” in the back of pickup trucks. We could sit in the front bench seat of the car with our families and not feel like a pariah. We could work for the locals when we were 12 for candy money, and never fear riding our bikes alone to the corner store to buy it.

We used to stand up to bullies with the now almost extinct retort, “Sez who? It’s a free country!”

[HighlyOpinionated]

"Useful" and "Necessity" are "The Tyrant's Plea." C.S. Lewis

[Caipirabob]

Is this a Presidential adminstration or a comedy act? It certainly can't be the former and if it's the latter, it's not funny.

Obama is risking marginalizing himself to the point of ridicule. I can't see that even his own party will be able to politically associate themselves to him if he continues pushing snake-oil legislation initiatives on the people during an economic crisis that he has only made worse through either his incompetence or planned obsolescence.