President Obama’s appointee to get the country’s new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau up and running spoke today in Louisville. Elizabeth Warren told a group of bankers and other financial officials that the agency will be open for business in July. It was created as part of the financial overhaul package approved last year by Congress.The bureau will oversee bank and non-bank lenders and credit card companies. It will also have offices dealing with financial literacy, and help for military families and senior citizens.Some in Congress have complained that the agency will have too much power, but Warren says it’s structured in a way that will be fair to both lenders and borrowers."I think the American people need to be reassured that somebody’s going to be watching out to make sure that the kind of crazy mortgages that got sold out of the backs of car trunks and the internet and people who just set up shops.....that that’s just not going to happen anymore," she said.The bureau does not yet have a permanent director. That person will be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.