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News Release
CFPB budget woes underscore fundamental problems with bureau’s set up
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) may run out of money soon, according to news reports. The bureau has been controversial from the start due…
Blog
Katie Porter’s exchange with CFPB’s Kraninger revisited amid new revelations
A recently surfaced clip of former Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) has sparked a firestorm online. In a newly revealed 2021 video revealed published by…
Blog
The week in regulations: Poultry improvement and painful scars
The federal government shut down on Wednesday. Thursday’s Federal Register had 60 final regulations; normal is about 10. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew in hundreds…
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News Release
CEI’s John Berlau Responds to Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Rule
Today, the Labor Department is expected to release its long-awaited "fiduciary rule." Ostensibly aimed at addressing potential conflicts of interest by brokers who offer retirement investment advice, Competitive…
Blog
Operation Choke Point: The CFPB Is Now in Charge
I suggested at TheBlaze some weeks ago that even as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was stepping back from its involvement in Operation Choke Point, the…
Blog
International Panel Outlines Problems with EU Interchange Fee Regulation
On March 17, an international panel of experts gathered in Brussels to discuss the proposed EU interchange fee regulations that are set to be approved…
Blog
Least Transparent Administration Closes Records on Fannie and Freddie
This Sunshine Week, the administration that swept into office promising to be the “most transparent” in history was just judged by a major news service…
Blog
How Department of Labor’s “Fiduciary” Rule Could Cripple IRA Choices
Last week, President Obama called on the Department of Labor to “update the rules and requirements that retirement advisors put the best interests of their…
Blog
Harvard Study Confirms Dodd-Frank’s Harm to Main Street
Literally since the day the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law by President Obama, my Competitive Enterprise Institute colleagues…
Blog
Main Street Fights Dodd-Frank’s Chipping Away at the Constitution
“Wall Street Chips Away at Dodd-Frank,” blared a recent front-page headline in The New York Times about bipartisan measures that have passed the U.S. House of Representatives…
Blog
FDIC Retreats from Operation Choke Point
In a partial victory for all those campaigning against the abuse of power known as Operation Choke Point (see our comprehensive study here), the Federal…
The Patriot Post
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Does Anything But
The Patriot Post quotes CEI`s John Berlau on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: “A government report pegs the price of the work at…
The Daily Signal
Government Agency Under Scrutiny for $215 Million Building Renovation
The Dialy Signal quotes CEI`s John Berlau on the Consumer Protection Bureau office renovations: Costly building renovations at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection…
Blog
Obama Should Help Borrowers by Shedding Dodd-Frank, Not Pumping FHA
“If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” So said Ronald Reagan in 1986. Reagan was describing the unintended effects of…
Blog
Lame Duck Quacks Needed Dodd-Frank Relief
Waaaah! That’s the sound of former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) crying about stinging, bipartisan rebukes to his legacy of the Dodd-Frank…
Blog
Rep. Leutkemeyer Moves to Choke off Operation Choke Point
The release this week of a new House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff report into Operation Choke Point provides another opportunity to underline just how…
Real Clear Markets
Entrepreneurs Want Capital, But Not Bank Capital
The Real Clear Markets cites CEi`s John Berlau on the investment regulations: The solution is to unleash capital from the bottom-up and where…
Blog
Liberals and Conservatives Challenge Overreach of Dodd-Frank’s FSOC on MetLife
As CEI brings suit before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals tomorrow challenging the constitutionality of unaccountable bureaucracies created by the Dodd-Frank “financial reform” law…
Blog
Crowdfunding Is Entrepreneurship’s History and its Future
In America and around the world, aspiring entrepreneurs are meeting their colleagues and their mentors in official and unofficial sessions of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Created…
Blog
CFPBs Prepaid Debit Card Rules Will Harm Low-Income Consumers
Today’s action by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to issue unprecedented burdens on providers of prepaid debit cards shows why the bureau needs to be held…
Blog
The Long National Nightmare of Dodd-Frank Is Almost Over
One of the prime reasons for the continuing economic uncertainty that bedevils so many ordinary Americans is the presence in law of the Dodd-Frank Act…
Blog
The Economist: Interchange Fee Caps Benefit Large Retailers at Consumer Expense
Surprise! Price controls lead to unintended consequences—including transfers of wealth to parties who lobbied for those controls. That’s the actual – and unsurprising – result…
Blog
See Me at San Francisco Crowdfund Banking and Lending Summit
My colleague Wayne Crews’ Forbes column Monday explained “How Entrepreneurs Can Speak Out About the Cost of Regulation,” but noted sadly that “businesses that never form…
One News Now
Mobile Checking a “Scheme” or Good for Competition?
John Berlau discusses mobile checking with One News Now: "This week, an article in Salon calls it a scheme to prey on America's…
Blog
Nationalizing Bitcoin?
The phrase “if you can’t beat them, join them” seems so applicable in light of the Commonwealth of Dominica announcing plans…
Blog
You’re a SIFI, Charlie Brown
“Good grief!” That’s what the Charlie Brown, star of comic strip Peanuts and cartoon spokesman for the MetLife insurance firm, might say about the government’s…
Blog
The Impending BitLicense and Premature Regulations
Last month, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) announced its proposed regulations for businesses engaged in “Virtual Currency Business Activity.”The Department defines these businesses…
Blog
New Study Estimates around $70 billion in Financial Regulatory Costs
Complying with regulations is part of the cost of doing business. For bigger businesses that can absorb those costs (or rather, pass them on to…
Study
Operation Choke Point
Can the government shut down legal but politically disfavored businesses? If an ongoing federal regulatory campaign continues, that may be precisely what happens.
Products
Dodd-Frank is the new ObamaCare
“If you like your life, home, and auto insurance, you can keep them.” No, President Obama didn’t utter those words when he signed the Dodd-Frank…
Blog
Bitcoin’s Undiscovered Potential
A recent piece in American Banker magazine explores how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can help the underprivileged, particularly the millions of unbanked people who…
Blog
Subprime Auto Concerns Caused by Government Intervention
Should we worry about a crisis in subprime auto loans? That question has been asked in the financial media lately. My answer is yes, with…
The Washington Examiner
Big Ideas: On Dodd-Frank,
As with Obamacare, unintended consequences of [the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law] almost immediately began to surface. First, there was a sharp reduction in free…
Blog
Dodd-Frank Is Obamacare for Non-Health Insurance
“If you like your life, home, and auto insurance, you can keep them.” President Obama didn’t make this promise when he signed into law the…
Blog
Finance for the People
Over at The Freeman, I take a look at how technology has been democratizing access to capital, bringing news ways of raising money to people…
The Freeman
Finance for the People
Financial innovation: People like to talk a lot about it these days. But what is it? If you read the business press, it’s all about…
Blog
Questions for Richard Cordray
This morning, Richard Cordray, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, testifies to a House Committee on the Board's semi-annual report. One of the Board's…
Blog
Cantor’s Loss a Warning Shot to Supporters of Ex-Im Bank and Johnson-Crapo
Defying conventional wisdom as he often does, Pulitzer prize-winning pundit George F. Will disputed the notion that in the wake of the shocking primary loss…
News Release
Report: Job Growth Greater With Family Businesses
WASHINGTON, May 20 – Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) published a new study showing state and local governments could see more job growth…
Reason
Choke Point Check-In: Constitutional Concerns in DOJ Targeting ‘Risky’ Businesses
Operation Choke Point was initially pitched as a crackdown on web-based payday lending businesses that lend into states that prohibit it. Now it may have…
Forbes
How to Ease the Crushing Costs of Federal Regulations
“You can look at the federal budget and see what we spend. There is nothing like that with respect to regulations. I tabulate the annual…
Comment
Comments to the SEC by John Berlau on Crowdfunding
In comments submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), CEI Senior Fellow John Berlau warns that new SEC rules impacting crowdfunding could…
News Release
Dodd-Frank “Diversity” Hiring Quotas Unconstitutional
Washington, DC, Feb. 6, 2014 – The Dodd-Frank Act regulates the financial sector, but what many people do not know is how far its…
News Release
Proposed SEC Rules on Crowdfunding Threaten Access to Capital By Locking Out Ordinary Investors
Washington, DC, Feb. 6, 2014 – This week marked the deadline for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to accept public comments on proposed…
Comment
CEI comments on Dodd-Frank proposed diversity statement Docket No OP-1465
Daily Caller
The Volcker Rule is Obamacare for main street banks and their customers
You might think after the disastrous debut of HealthCare.gov and thousands of insurance cancellations, those who call themselves progressives might just have a little humility…
News Release
Volcker Rule Could Cause Financial Storm, Warn CEI Scholars
Washington, DC, Dec. 11, 2013 – Amid the snow that seemed to paralyze DC yesterday, bureaucrats issued a final regulation on Dodd-Frank’s Volcker Rule that…
News Release
Government “Study” on Internet Tax Hides Harmful Small Business Effects
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 – Under presidents of both parties, the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy has produced top-notch independent studies on the harm the…
The American Spectator
The Unintended Consequences Of Credit Card Regulation
When you try to regulate things, you’re really regulating people. If there’s one crucial lesson to keep in mind about regulation, this is it. And…
Letters
Coalition Letter on Extension for Pay Ratio
Full Document Available in PDF The undersigned organizations, institutions, and nonprofits interested in fostering entrepreneurship represent hundreds of thousands of businesses, small…
Providence Journal
Labyrinthine law threatens our life insurance now
Dodd-Frank, the law more properly known as the 2010 Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, was intended to stabilize the financial system and end…
News Release
Questions for Yellen
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 – It’s not every day we get a new chair of the Fed. It is a time to check the fundamental bearings…
Study
Questions for Federal Reserve Nominee Janet Yellen
Full Document Available in PDF Janet Yellen is President Obama’s choice to succeed Ben Bernanke as the Federal Reserve Chair. Yellen is…