I don't like her tone at all. When CUNA asks for a comment letter, it's always about doing what we can to ensure members benefit. I get that CUNA/NAFCU-type groups can be overbearing and over emphasize deregulation, but to suggest that they are purposefully trying to subvert the political process at the expense of members instead of for their benefit is just creating an adversarial relationship that doesn't need to exist. Credit unions and their advocacy groups want to help members, and Warren does too. We just have different philosophies and need to continue working to find common ground.

The problem with lawmakers like Warren is that they have this lofty broad concept of "the rich are screwing over the poor," and fail to actually create solutions that fit what are in reality very specific and complicated problems. Her blanket approach is just serving to alienate the majority of the financial sector that contributed nothing to the financial crisis.

Brandon Hord

This is Elitism 101. You have a rich and powerful person (Elizabeth Warren) openly advocating that those unprotected by wealth and power voluntarily silence themselves and let their "betters" think for them. She's saying, "This is a good law for the mere reason that I said it's a good law." Cordray has exhibited similar totalitarian tendencies with the CFPB.

As to Dodd-Frank, perhaps the reason it hasn't been implemented is that it is simply bad law, created by the very people who caused the problems it claims to address.

B.A. Ware

Remember, she is the person who set up the CFPB. The only reason she wasn't named the queen, I mean director, of the CFPB is she would not have been approved by the Senate. To all so-called consumer advocates – please stop regulating us out of existence.

BillyBobJim

She's right that regulatory capture is a huge (yuge?) problem. However, an important nuance that seems to be missing from the article is that the regulatory requirements of member-owned cooperative firms are fundamentally different (and less than) those of for-profit firms for which the structural prime directive is the extraction of as much profit from the consumer as possible. Such extractive companies are far more dangerous to consumers and conflating the two categories under the umbrella rubric of "private sector" unhelpfully confuses the issue.

Matthew Cropp

Matthew, credit unions face the same regulatory requirements as the banking industry. It's incorrect to say that financial cooperatives face less regulation

While the predatory practices still exist, and in fact thrive and mutate, credit unions have experienced no meaningful credit and carve out for responsible behavior.

Mike Beall

CU Strategic Planning

Tacoma, Wash.

Good point, Mike Beall. I realize my initial post was an unclear vis a vis. When I said "regulatory requirements," I was not referring to what currently exists, but what should exist, given the structural incentives of the two kinds of firms. The fact that there isn't such a carve out based on structural differences is a serious problem that the credit union movement should be seeking to rectify, but collapsing our interests into the interests of a broader "private sector" as this Total Spectrum guy does isn't, IMHO, a strategically effective way to advance that agenda.

Matthew Cropp