Needed: Protection from bad financial products

A bill recently was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Il), and co-sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Ma), to establish the Financial Product Safety Commission, a single federal agency to oversee the myriad financial products that bombard consumers.

"The Nation’s multiagency financial services regulatory structure has created a dispersion of regulatory responsibility, which in turn has led to an inadequate focus on protecting consumers from inappropriate consumer financial products and practices," the bill says.  "The absence of appropriate oversight has allowed excessively costly or predatory consumer financial products and practices to flourish."

Defend Your Dollars, a Web site sponsored by the advocacy arm of Consumers Union, offers an amazing gallery of people who've been victimized by financial fraud and chicanery. After reading some of them, you'll understand why CU and many other organizations support the establishment of such an agency. Click here for CU's fact sheet about the bill. And if you have faced or are facing foreclosure, share your story with us.—Tobie Stanger

Comments

[J.Mustwrite]

Good Morning
It is always so heartwarming to see someone especially Government officials and representatives stand up for the trusting,or otherwise disdvantaged in society.
AT one time the free enterprize system of Capitalist democratic society most individuals where capable of policing themselves( albeit a disenting recognizable few )with minimal regulations by Government.
One of the reasons for that was more people in years past were more spiritually educated in one or more of thee major faiths and responsible. Communities where also more close knit and for the most part.
This situation allowed for the independant application of those professed
spiritual pricipals and community values.
Today the situation that exists with most cultures of the world is the evident lack of spiritual education and and proper understanding of those values or principals not only by the masses but by educators as well. Truly a spiritual vacuum or as one great book calls it a famine
of epoch proportions. Yes all the major faiths today have taken a more direct involvment in political activism and abandoned spiritual education and values themselves even engaging the persuit of real estate and wealth. With their tax exempt status these have acted shamlessly.
Some have amased more wealth than many small countries.Do these not fulfill Psalm 14:1-4, 2Timothy 3:5-7.
Values, standards and regulations are required more than ever because the facts speak for themselves. Percieved or otherwise individual rights must never trump the common good of all the people. True justice and good Governance and leadeship which produces order and a sense of security along with prosperity for all.

Regards

[kyle5434]

Great. More bureaucracy to address the existing bureaucracy.

[Steve]

While I don't disagree that there are some predatory products and practices out there, the "amazing gallery" seems to be mostly people who simply got in over their heads in mortgages they couldn't afford, and/or who are now in trouble because home prices have tumbled.