00:00Can the nation make this journey in an environment where it might be more like the wild, wild west?
00:07There's no guardrails. There's no framework. There's nothing.
00:11Just let it be. Case around. What will be will be.
00:14Is that good for society is really the question where we're seeing this occur in an environment where even the
00:25longstanding regulatory systems,
00:28like the CFPB and the Community Reinvestment Act, are being gutted, being undermined, being muted, being spayed, actually being neutered.
00:35That's an important question. What what insight can you offer?
00:39I agree with you very much, Mark, that, you know, we're at significant risk, particularly, you know,
00:47the area that I know the best is the financial services space.
00:50It's happening in many other areas of our society.
00:53But in financial services, those guardrails are being weakened.
00:58And I do think it creates additional risk.
01:01It creates risk to safety and soundness, you know, to risk that will repeat the problems of the past.
01:09You know, as you said, in the global financial crisis, in the lead up to that, one of the problems
01:14was regulation was weakened.
01:17And in the S&L crisis and savings and loan crisis in the 1980s leading up to that, regulations were
01:23weakened.
01:23And in the regional bank crisis we had in 2023, before that, oversight of those regional banks was weakened.
01:31So if you look at these patterns in history, people start to get complacent or the political mood in Washington
01:40changes and regulation starts to weaken.
01:43And you get a little sugar high at first.
01:46But, you know, that bill comes due.
01:49It always comes due.
01:50And so down the road, you might have greater risk.
01:54And, you know, at the Federal Reserve, I've been dissenting a lot lately on policies affecting regulation,
02:03regulation, because I think the steps that are being taken at the Fed are weakening regulation.
02:12And as you said, at other agencies, we, you know, we do consumer protection of smaller banks and risk assessments
02:20of big banks for consumer protection at the Federal Reserve.
02:23Sure. But we need to have partners to do that.
02:28We used to have a very strong consumer financial protection bureau that was our partner in making sure that supervision
02:36was strong.
02:37And that partner is being gutted.
02:40And the CFPB is the only agency that supervises non-bank institutions.
02:46The Federal Reserve doesn't supervise those institutions.
02:49The CFPB does, and they're not doing it now.
02:54That's a huge risk to the system.
02:57The Community Reinvestment Act, which we worked on together, you know, 30 years ago, trying to preserve it and strengthen
03:03it,
03:05has been a bipartisan effort, has been an effort that banks and civil rights organizations and community groups all supported.
03:14In 2023, we put out a stronger CRA rule and the banks attacked it and sued us for it and
03:23stopped us.
03:24So we're in an environment, even before the latest changes, where civil rights principles are under attack.
03:35And so I think it's an absolutely critical moment for our country.
03:38And the kind of country I want to live in is a country with good guardrails and good, strong civil
03:42rights protections
03:43and good, strong enforcement and supervision.
Comments