Category Archives: Banking & Lending Issues

New Rule From Agency Trump Wants Destroyed Would Save Consumers $5 Billion Per Year in Overdraft Fees

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One advocate called the CFPB’s new rule “a major milestone in its effort to level the playing field between regular people and big banks.”

By Julia Conley. Published 12-12-2024 by Common Dreams

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Photo: ajay_suresh/flickr/CC

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one of President-elect Donald Trump’s top expected targets as he plans to dismantle parts of the federal government after taking office in January, announced on Thursday its latest action aimed at saving households across the U.S. hundreds of dollars in fees each year.

The agency issued a final rule to close a 55-year-old loophole that has allowed big banks to collect billions of dollars in overdraft fees from consumers each year,

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Major Plastic Polluters Win as UN Treaty Talks Conclude Without Agreement

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“Every day that governments allow polluters to continue flooding the world with plastic, we all pay the price,” said one campaigner.

By Jon Queally. Published 12-1-2024 by Common Dreams

A bale of crushed PET drink bottles at a recycling facility in San Jose, California Photo: Grendelkhan/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Environmental groups on Sunday decried the conclusion of a United Nations summit designed to secure an international treaty to combat plastic pollution after powerful oil- and gas-producing nations refused to agree to production limits and other more aggressive measures to curb pollution.

Failure to reach an agreement means the talks—known as the INC-5 round that took place in Busan, South Korea—will be extended to another round, but campaigners said the sabotage of a far-reaching treaty by fossil fuel interests is wasting precious time that the world’s ecosystems, wildlife, and people can no longer afford.

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COP29 puts world on course for more extreme weather – and more deaths

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Summit proves change won’t come until floods and wildfires are killing tens of thousands in rich Global North cities

By Paul Rogers. Published 11-25-2024 by openDemocracy

Screenshot: Sky News

While COP29 in Baku narrowly avoided collapsing, its results were bitterly disappointing for delegations from across the Global South, who ended up with barely a quarter of the annual $1.3trn of support they were seeking by 2035 to respond to climate breakdown.

Quite apart from other factors, more than 1,500 pro-carbon lobbyists worked hard to limit progress and ensure that burning oil, gas and coal at profit continues for as long as possible whatever the global consequences. After all, the world’s fossil fuel industries rake in around a trillion dollars in profits a year.

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Wall Street Banks Accused of Trying to Sabotage Key Consumer Protection Rule

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“The CFPB must stop this ploy by the biggest banks to keep us trapped under their thumbs.”

By Julia Conley. Published 11-15-2024 by Common Dreams

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon delivers a speech at the Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco. Photo: Fortune Global Forum/flickr/CC

Consumer advocates applauded last month as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule aimed at making it easier for people to switch financial institutions if they’re unhappy with a bank’s service, without the bank retaining their personal data—but on Thursday, more than a dozen groups warned the CFPB that major Wall Street firms are trying to stop Americans from benefiting from the rule.

Several advocacy groups, led by the Demand Progress Education Fund, wrote to CFPB director Rohit Chopra warning that major banks—including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, TD Bank, and Wells Fargo—sit on the board of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), which has applied to the bureau for standard-setting body (SSB) status, which would give it authority over what is commonly known as the “open banking rule.”

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‘Unacceptable,’ Advocates Say as COP16 Ends Without Biodiversity Fund Deal

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“Biodiversity finance remains stalled after a deafening absence of credible finance pledges from wealthy governments and unprecedented corporate lobbying,” said one campaigner.

By Julia Conley. Published 11-2-2024 by Common Dreams

COP16 President and Minister of Environment Susana Muhamad of Colombia speaks at COP16, the international biodiversity conference. Photo: COP16

Officials at the international biodiversity conference that began in October were forced on Saturday to suspend talks without reaching an agreement on a key issue of the summit—a detailed finance plan for a dedicated biodiversity fund—after the meeting went into overtime and delegates began leaving.

The failure to reach an agreement on biodiversity finance was denounced by the head of environmental group Greenpeace’s delegation at the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which took place over two weeks in Cali, Colombia.

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‘Dangerous’: Judge Blocks Student Debt Relief Rule That Doesn’t Exist Yet

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“Opponents of democracy are terrified that they will lose again at the ballot box in November and are rushing to right-wing judges to hamstring democratic governance,” said one observer.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 9-5-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: American Association of University Professors/flickr/CC

A Republican-appointed U.S. federal judge in Georgia raised eyebrows and objections Thursday after taking what observers called the “unprecedented” step of blocking a rule that hasn’t even been finalized in order to stop the Biden administration from implementing a plan to deliver promised debt relief to millions of student borrowers.

U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Georgia James Randal Hall issued an order blocking the Biden administration’s proposed federal student debt relief rule. Hall—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—granted a motion by a coalition of right-wing state attorneys general to preempt the rule’s eventual implementation.

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How Crypto Giants Are ‘Exploiting’ Citizens United to Buy 2024 Elections

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A new analysis and call for a constitutional amendment comes as reporting sheds light on Sen. JD Vance’s ties to a right-wing group backed by tech and digital currency investors.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 8-21-2024 by Common Dreams

Image: QuoteInspector.com

A report out Wednesday takes aim at how giants of the cryptocurrency industry are using the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which opened the floodgates for dark money in political campaigns, to make a massive deregulatory push ahead of this year’s pivotal election.

Based on Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool’s analysis of federal election data from OpenSecrets, the consumer advocacy group accused the crypto industry of “exploiting” the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling “to an unprecedented degree, dwarfing direct corporate spending by Big Oil and other corporate sectors in the 2024 elections.”

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Milei’s ‘twin extractivism’ reforms threaten Argentina and the planet

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Argentina’s debt will grow as Big Tech extracts data and knowledge, forcing state to abuse nature to pay it off

By Cecilia Rikap. Published 6-28-2024 by openDemocracy

Javier Milei, President of Argentina speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2024. Photo: World Economic Forum/flickr/CC

Argentina’s far-right president Javier Milei secured early this morning his first major win in office, with the country’s lower chamber passing the first of his landmark regressive reforms. Congress’s approval of the so-called Ley Bases, or the Bases Law, came weeks after the bill prompted a 13-hour debate in the upper chamber and a peaceful demonstration outside Parliament that was met with fierce police repression.

The legislation – which is a key part of Milei’s anarcho-liberal government plan – promotes investment in extractive industries, such as forestry, construction, mining, energy and technology. It includes a Large Investment Incentive Scheme (RIGI, by its Spanish acronym) that will grant extractive investment projects worth at least $200m lower income tax, authorise them to import fixed capital and tax only their exports in the first three years.

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‘Consumers Win’ as Supreme Court Rejects ‘Radical’ Attack on CFPB

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Amid celebrations over the ruling, one legal expert warned, “Don’t confuse ‘SCOTUS slaps down a wackadoodle 5th Circuit decision’ with ‘SCOTUS is more moderate than its critics claim.'”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 5-16-2024 by Common Dreams

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra. Screenshot: CNBC

Legal experts and progressive advocates on Thursday applauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision to uphold the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism but also cautioned against praising the far-right justices.

While Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented, fellow right-winger Clarence Thomas penned the opinion in CFPB v. Consumer Financial Services Association of America, joined by the other three conservatives and three liberals—two of whom wrote concurring opinions.

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‘Unprecedented’: Belgian Police Blast Climate Defenders With Water Cannon

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“The fact that national governments are subsidizing fossil fuels is akin to a crime against humanity,” said one Extinction Rebellion organizer.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 5-5-2024 by Common Dreams

Extinction Rebellion-led climate protesters block the Rue Belliard in Brussels, Belgium on May 4, 2024. (Photo: Wouter van Leeuwen/Extinction Rebellion Belgium/X)

The climate action group Extinction Rebellion Belgium on Saturday decried what it called “disproportionate police violence” against nonviolent demonstrators who were blasted with a water cannon during a protest in Brussels demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies.

Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion-led climate defenders blocked Rue Belliard in the European Quarter, the de facto European Union capital, during EU Open Day, when agencies of the 27-nation bloc open their doors to the public. In what Extinction Rebellion called an “unprecedented police response,” officers used a truck-mounted water cannon on the protesters, some of whom were also allegedly struck with batons.

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