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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Is Silencing Government Warning Signals of an Economic Crash
Trump Is Silencing Government Warning Signals of an Economic Crash - The New Republic His administration is decimating two vital federal bodies that were created in response to the Great Recessionbecause thats what the bankers want.(excerpts re the CFPB, as it's the agency I've long written about)
(The) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPBs) function is not merely informational but regulatory; it polices abuse of consumers by financial institutions, which is epidemic. Already Vought has reduced CFPB to what E. Tammy Kim, writing last month in The New Yorker, called The Zombie Regulator. (The coinage is from Seth Frotman, its former general counsel.) CFPBs headquarters, Kim reported, is now mostly empty, despite repeated court interventions barring Vought from conducting mass firings. Last year, Vought tried to fire 90 percent of CFPBs staff, but he was blocked last month by Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the D.C. District Court. Now Vought, who since firing CFPB Director Rohit Chopra has been the agencys acting director, proposes to cut whats left of the staff in half, from about 1,200 employees to 556 employees. The agency had 1,750 workers at the start of Trumps administration.
Trump is very focused on keeping the pieces of his coalition that are still willing to return his phone calls inside the tent, ...These people have a line directly in to the senior staff of the White House. They ask for the world, and more often than not they get it.
What they want in this instance is to shut off any warning lights that might dare blink red about the economy. Its bad for business, [Trump too, no doubt] and if a bust is coming theyd prefer we suckers dont know in advance. We may get crushed, but the big players will get bailed out, like always.
GopherGal
(2,910 posts)Trump is very much a "shoot the messenger" guy.
"If we cut down testing for COVID, we won't have so many cases"
B.See
(8,532 posts)dispell fallacies and reveal facts. It's why Trump says he "loves the poorly educated."
FakeNoose
(41,697 posts)Shooting the messenger is one of his favorite tricks.
yellow dahlia
(5,935 posts)This is a very important article. Thank you for bringing attention to it, B.See.
And thanks to The New Republic for being on top of this kind of reporting.
Here are a few of the paragraphs about the OFR. The bold is mine.
SNIP/
The financial world doesnt appreciate seeing the federal government advertise its vulnerabilities, even sotto voce, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who between 2019 and 2024 collected nearly $2 million in campaign contributions from the securities and investment sector, introduced during that same time period three successive bills to abolish OFR, which he called useless and unaccountable. Last years one big, beautiful reconciliation bill initially zeroed out OFRs budget, but the Senate parliamentarian ruled against that. So Vought took matters into his own hands. Having already halved OFRs staff from 196 employees to 100, Treasury officials informed staff last month that 64 percent of the remainder will be laid off, according to reports this week by Government Executive and the Federal News Network. This was proposed in President Donald Trumps 2026 budget, but Vought must have figured: Why wait for Congress?
As risks emerge in the financial system and cracks in the credit markets spread, Senator Elizabeth Warren told Government Executive, the Trump administration is gutting the office designed to evaluate financial risks in a giveaway to Wall Street. This is just the latest move by President Trump and his financial regulators to undermine financial stability and pave the way for another crash.
B.See
(8,532 posts)There was more from the article I wish I could've added. Esp. that paragraph about why Trump's administration keeps mum about their sabotage of these two agencies that serve the PUBLIC'S (i.e. consumer's) interests.
I didn't know about the OFR either. But I know the GOP has been trying to kill the CFPB since its inception.
yellow dahlia
(5,935 posts)It is what a love about DU - so much information being shared. Knowledge is power.
There's a looming problem in private credit markets that most people are not tuned into.
Additional stress is generated by the recent uptick in M&A activity, which has led to higher new bond issuance as rising public deficits suggest increased sovereign-bond supply.
SocGen's stated aim in their report is to "alert investors to the potential negative events that could shake-up the current low-volatile credit markets and move credit spreads wider." The SocGen team recommended investors prepare for deteriorating market conditions by building protection in credit-default swaps.
https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/2026033134/low-transparency-in-the-private-credit-market-may-be-concealing-big-problems
B.See
(8,532 posts)littlemissmartypants
(33,747 posts)Spelling out how our Democratic leaders, in addition to Senator Elizabeth Warren, are responding to this and what they aim to do about it?
Thank you for the discussion, B.See. ❤️
littlemissmartypants
(33,747 posts)B.See
(8,532 posts)wasn't able to confirm bias for the second reference, esp. seeing as how it was a banking journal.
But the article stuck to the facts, I think.
littlemissmartypants
(33,747 posts)...