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News Release
Energy and oil prices driving force behind March inflation increase: CEI analysis
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for March shows a 0.9 percent increase across all sectors, mainly driven by significantly higher energy and oil…
News Release
Federal Reserve keeps interest rates steady, higher inflation likely to continue: CEI analysis
The Fed has decided to keep interest rates steady, with inflation still too high to warrant rate cuts. With Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s term…
News Release
SEC to seek end to quarterly reporting mandate: CEI analysis
The Securities and Exchange Commission will propose to end mandatory quarterly reporting for public companies, and give companies the option to file semi-annually instead, according…
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Reason
Congress Just Voted to Repeal a Few Bits of Dodd-Frank
Reason cited John Berlau on the boon to small banks in being able to provide financial relief to Americans that is occuring with deregulation of…
Letters
CEI Leads Coalition Warning Against Punitive Taxation on Credit Unions Consumers
View Full Document as PDF The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Finance 219 Dirksen Senate Office Building…
News Release
CEI Commends House Passage of Modest Banking Reforms, Urges Congress to Go Further
Today, the House considered and passed The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act aimed at scaling back a few bad Dodd-Frank bank regulations. CEI Senior Fellow…
Blog
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Reexamines Anti-Discrimination Enforcement
This week President Trump signed a resolution of disapproval overturning one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most controversial regulatory actions—the inappropriate application of…
Blog
Ending Disparate Enforcement at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Just last week, Congress voted to overturn one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most controversial regulatory actions—a guidance document that was used…
News Release
Report: CFPB Can Fix Fair Lending Laws, Improve Consumer Protection and Access to Credit
A new Competitive Enterprise Institute report urges the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to remedy Obama-era misuse of a 1970s law, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act…
Study
The CFPB and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act
View Full Document as PDF Freedom, equality, and justice are all bedrock principles of the American experiment. Yet it is no secret…
Blog
Cut Red Tape So Middle-Class Investors Can Soar with Next Amazon
Today is the 21st anniversary of the initial public offering of a little company called Amazon. Yes, today Amazon is a behemoth, a supposed…
News Release
House Vote to Stop CFPB Auto Loan Rule Wins CEI Praise
Today, the House of Representatives passed a resolution to stop a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule aimed at curtailing certain auto loan practices.
Blog
Post Office Payday Loans: A Stunningly Bad Idea
Like clockwork, every so often a new member of Congress will rehash an old, tired idea: having the United States Postal Service (USPS) make short-term,…
Blog
Congress Should Axe Backdoor Auto Finance Rule
This week, Congress has a unique opportunity to repeal one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s worst regulatory actions. Using the Congressional Review Act (CRA),…
Washington Times
Leaving the Ultimate Misnomer Behind
Congress has a dwindling number of days left to stop a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regulation that will make payday loans difficult for consumers to get.
Blog
How to Encourage Tech Competition: Deregulate Finance
It’s May Day, and in the pages of the New York Times appears a paean to the halcyon days of the 1930s, urging a…
Blog
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Targets True Rights Violations with Wells Fargo Fine
After being attacked repeatedly for supposedly being soft on Wall Street and the “big banks,” Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney was part…
News Release
SEC to Propose Investor Fiduciary Rule
In the wake of a court ruling against a controversial Obama-era Labor Department rule expanding liability for investment advice, the Securities and Exchange Commission today…
Marketplace Radio
AUDIO: John Berlau Discusses Accountability at the CFPB with American Public Media’s Marketplace
John Berlau, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, joined American Public Media’s Marketplace, to discuss how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can be…
The Wall Street Journal
Cryptocurrency: Does Fed Want to Imitate Venezuela?
John Berlau writes a letter-to-the-editor to The Wall Street Journal about the dangers of the U.S. government issuing its own digital currency. After Kevin Warsh…
Blog
Acting Director Asks Congress for Reform of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
On Monday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its first semi-annual report to Congress under its new Acting Director, Mick Mulvaney. A routine procedure…
Blog
Commonwealth Nations Beating America on FinTech Regulation
While the United States continues to have healthy development of financial technologies—thanks predominately to unparalleled access to capital and technology—it is at risk of falling…
Forbes
Let’s Keep Cryptocurrency Mines Running in Human Achievement Hour & Every Hour
On Saturday, March 24th, from 8:30 to 9:30 PM in their local time zones, some people will turn off their lights as part of an…
Blog
Arizona Becomes First State to Establish FinTech Sandbox
As the only state where all four North American deserts reside, it’s fitting that Arizona became the first state to establish a “sandbox” for financial…
News Release
CEI Commends Senate for Passing Bipartisan Dodd-Frank Reform Bill
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) commends the U.S. Senate on passage of Sen. Crapo's S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act.
Blog
3 Reasons the Senate Should Pass Financial Reform
The Senate is expected to vote on its first major piece of financial reform this week since the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. A bipartisan bill…
Blog
The Supreme Court Case That Would Catch the Law Up to Economic Reality
As more and more services move into platform business models as the lower transaction costs they facilitate increase consumer welfare, platform firms need assurance…
Blog
The Government Killed Free Checking—Can Amazon Save It?
Amazon's move into banking services spells good news for currently under-served consumers, who often rely on relatively expensive financial services such as payday lending or…
Blog
If the Payday Lending Rule Stays, Ability-to-Repay Does, Too
Many in the financial services industry seem to believe the CFPB's ability to replay rule doesn’t impact them and it’s not worth fighting. That is…
Blog
Government Not Only Source of Regulation for Finance
One of the most misunderstood and underappreciated aspects of free market economics is the idea of private or “self” regulation. Up until recently, private enterprises…
The Washington Times
Trump Signs Legislation to Repeal Obama-Era Arbitration Rule
The Washington Times quoted Iain Murray on the need for Congress to disapprove of the CFPB’s egregious rule against small dollar loans. President Trump signed…
The Washington Examiner
CFPB’s ‘NSA-like’ surveillance in limbo with leadership tussle
The Washington Examiner quoted John Berlau in the need for regulatory reform and the need to eliminate the cache of consumer data which the CFPB…
Valuewalk
Time To End The GSE Conservatorship
When other financial institutions that received TARP funds paid back what they owed to the U.S. Treasury in full, the government relinquished its ownership stake…
RealClearMarkets
Undoing President Obama’s Damage Will Take Time
RealClearMarkets quoted Daniel Press on banking regulations impact on the banking system. Ronald Reagan once said, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in…
Blog
CEI Reacts to Trump’s FY19 Budget Proposals for CFPB, EPA, and Regulatory Reform
CEI experts react to provisions in President Trump’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal released on February 12, 2018.
Newsmax
Stop Stealth Capital Gains Tax Hike in Senate Bill
It’s crunch time on tax reform. The House passed a bill just before Thanksgiving. Now it’s the Senate’s turn. A good tax reform bill would…
The Hill
Why are we still regulating Main Street like Wall Street?
It’s no secret that banks across America aren’t doing well under the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress’s response to the 2008 financial crisis. Since Dodd-Frank’s enactment in…
Compliance Week
Coalition Urges Congress to Halt CFPB Rule on ‘Payday’ Loans
Compliance Week covers CEI’s coalition letter urging Congress to stop the CFPB’s payday-loan rule. On Feb. 6, 23 free market groups led by the…
Blog
The Myth of Independence at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The myth of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau independence invalidates the Bureau’s protection from the President and Congress. The extreme insulation is predicated on protecting the…
Blog
SEC Should Investigate California Municipalities for Climate-Related Securities Fraud
It appears a variety of California municipalities have gotten themselves in hot water. To investors of their bonds, they have claimed that they are unable…
Reason
CFPB Is Constitutional, Court Rules, in Victory for Unaccountable Bureaucrats Everywhere
Reason discusses the ruling in PHH Corp. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with Iain Murray. The structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was…
Blog
Mulvaney Saving, Not ‘Dismantling,’ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Effective consumer protection does not require a body as unaccountable, powerful, and ideologically driven as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In short, it does not…
Blog
Trump Should Boost Bipartisan Access-to-Capital Bill in SOTU
If President Trump really wants to strike a note of bipartisanship in his State of the Union address, as well as promote measures to build…
The Hill
Congress Must Use Its Tools to Block Consumer Bureau’s Payday Loan Rule
Big things are happening at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a recently-created but unusually powerful government agency. Now temporarily headed by Trump’s Director of the Office…
Blog
7 Congressional Efforts the President Should Urge Members to Support
President Trump should use his State of the Union address to encourage members of Congress to pass these 7 bills immediately.
RealClear Politics
It’s Time for Trump to Kill the Regulatory Swamp Monsters
RealClear Politics discusses the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s impact on financial regulation referencing CEI.
Blog
The State of Financial Regulation
President Trump will deliver his inaugural State of the Union address next week, where he will outline the administration’s agenda for the coming year. Here…
Blog
A New Day at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
According to Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will now stick to enforcing consumer protection laws as written, but not attempt go beyond that…
Blog
Durbin Amendment Update: No More Free Checking for the Poor
The Durbin Amendment strikes again. Today brings further evidence that the little-known amendment authored by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), which imposed price controls on…
Blog
Tax Reform Outperforms Government Programs on Community Investment
Tax reform is the gift that keeps on giving. Americans for Tax Reform has documented the ever-growing list of companies providing pay raises, bonuses, 401(k)…
Blog
Increasing Public Awareness Bolsters Potential for Blockchain Applications
Blockchain is a software architecture that seems very likely to unleash profound global forces if it crosses over into the mainstream.
JD Supra
Overturning the CFPB’s Final Payday Loan Rule by Reopening Rulemaking or CRA Resolution
JD Supra covers developments of the CFPB’s payday loan rule and Daniel Press’ “7 Reasons to Oppose the Federal Payday Loan Rule.” On December 1, 2018,…
Blog
Payday Loan Options Serve Consumers Well
Congress should use the Congressional Review Act to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s payday loan rule.