On May 1, the Center for Regulation and Markets will host former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray to discuss his new book, “Watchdog: How Protecting Consumers Can Save Our Families, Our Economy, and Our Democracy.” Cordray will also address what he learned at the CFPB and how he would apply those lessons to tackling the COVID-19 economy.
In his new book, Cordray discusses his time as Director, from the Bureau’s inception to the current administration.
In an interview with The Columbus Dispatch [1], Cordray spoke about the book detailing why the CFPB was deemed necessary.
“In the leadup to the financial crisis, which occurred almost a decade ago and was the worst economic collapse we had suffered in the United States since the Great Depression, it became understood among people in Washington that there was a hole in the system,” Cordray said. “There was nobody looking out for consumers in the financial marketplace.”
Cordray also covers his time at CFPB during the beginning of the Trump Administration.
Cordray writes that he believed President Trump was on the verge of forcing him out at the beginning of November 2017.
“I received an unscheduled call from the White House, and a secretary asked me to hold to speak with the president, but then the call was abruptly terminated,” Cordray writes.
The book notes that the agency's response to Wells Fargo’s bogus-accounts scandal in 2016 was a “seminal moment” for the CFPB. Cordray says Wells Fargo's effort to downplay the scandal was "spin" that "was crushed by the facts and by the ensuing public outrage.”
Here's what else is happening in The Week Ahead:
- DS5 (April 28)
- Case-Shiller Home Prices Index (April 28)
- NAR Pending Home Sales (April 29)
- FOMC Announcement (April 29)