Consumer Law

An Analysis of The Wall Street Journal's Campaign Against the CFPB

By Brian Wolfman

At Credit Slips, Adam Levitin has posted this interesting piece on what he calls a "smear campaign" by the Wall Street Journal against Elizabeth Warren motivated by a desire to undermine the legitimacy of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Here's Levitin's key introductory paragraph:

The WSJ editorial page has never managed to articulate an argument for why there should not be a CFPB, however. I think there's a reason for that--there isn't one that can be made with a straight face. The WSJ's motivation is it is afraid that the CFPB will result in greater fairness, transparency, and efficiency in consumer finance markets--and hence less profit for Wall Street. But even the WSJ knows that's not an argument it can make in public. So instead, the WSJ editorial page harps on accountability and legality. Let's see how well these strawmen stand up to the fire of reason.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on March 28, 2011 (boomark / email).