Mike Pierce

What at time to be a loan shark. For @borrowerjustice.bsky.social, I discuss how business is booming at Dave, how the CFPB just got even worse for consumers, & more! indebt.substack.com/p/this-week-...

Featuring:
@alanasemuels.bsky.social
@carterd.bsky.social

And more!

Is The Student Loan Safety Net Unraveling? | KQED We talk about why California’s student loan delinquency rate is soaring, and how a broken repayment system is pushing borrowers deeper into financial distress.

🎙️ON AIR:

We're talking to @evanbwhite.bsky.social, @millennialdebt.bsky.social and @jmargetta.bsky.social about why California’s student loan delinquency rate is soaring.

❓Do you have student loans? What has your repayment experience been like?

📻 Listen:

Is The Student Loan Safety Net Unraveling? | KQED We talk about why California’s student loan delinquency rate is soaring, and how a broken repayment system is pushing borrowers deeper into financial distress.

Tomorrow on @kqedforum.bsky.social: CPL's @evanbwhite.bsky.social will join with @millennialdebt.bsky.social and @jmargetta.bsky.social to discuss the latest on student loans - including a sharp increase in delinquencies: www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

The WHITE HOUSE website reads Democrat Shutdown is Imminent With a clock displaying 05:32:29 but the numbers look fuzzy because they are improperly scaled

The DOGE vibe coders can’t even scale a clock to a screen www.whitehouse.gov/government-s...

Tweet from AG Pamela Bondi reading: “Another victory for President Trump! In a 2-1 ruling, the DC Circuit sided with my @TheJusticeDept attorneys in our effort to dismantle the CFPB and rein in crippling Obama-era regulations. We will continue to pursue the President’s deregulation efforts.”

The DC Cir majority lifts the ban on firing CFPB staff bc there was “no…statement, written or oral, purporting to shut down the CFPB” & noting the gov’t “does not claim the power to ‘shut down’ the CFPB.”

But then AG Bondi tweets out: actually, that’s been the plan all along!

x.com/agpambondi/s...

Chief of Staff of CFPB Consumer Response: based on 10 yrs experience & “the sheer volume of complaints (estimated at 5 million in 2025), it remains my opinion that the Office will be incapable of performing its statutory duties…if the RIFs were to proceed.”
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

“Without any staff, the Privacy Office cannot perform the agencies statutorily required duties regarding privacy. I am not aware of any other individuals at CFPB who have the necessary individual expertise to undertake these specific duties. The Privacy Office staff each had over a decade of federal privacy experience and hold privacy certificates”

“Without any staff, the Privacy Office cannot perform the agency’s statutorily required duties regarding privacy. I am not aware of any other individuals at CFPB [w/] the necessary individual expertise to undertake these specific duties” storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

“The three remaining employees simply could not perform this work on their own”

“Publishing the average prime offer rate on a weekly basis. See 88 FR 24393”

The head of CFPB Research says all but 3 of its 57 staff were fired.

A critical data point for the entire U.S. mortgage market (average prime offer rate APOR) is among their MANY tasks Congress requires they perform—and could not perform with only 3 staff storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

A staffer describes how the CFPB consumer complaint system has been pushed to the brink, and is in danger of breaking. One of the many people keeping it from breaking was RIFed. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Four Doe declarants describe how “if the April 17 RIF and administrative
leave had not been paused, it is highly likely that CFPB data would have been irretrievably lost.”
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

New filing in NTEU v Vought has *19* declarations from both names and pseudonymous CFPB staff, detailing how Trump admin is still trying to delete the CFPB:

www.courtlistener.com/docket/69624...

I'm at the US Courthouse media room. I'll try to live blog for @lawfaremedia.org the hearing in the case over the dismantling of CFPB before Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Unions claim Trump Adm has ordered reductions in force that violate her injunction even as narrowed by the DC Circuit.
/1

Lesley Stahl reports on President Trump’s efforts to halt the work and cut the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an enforcement agency that was created in response to the 2008 financial crisis. 60 Minutes, Sunday.

Apparently Trump is content to let Elon Musk run the country while he takes care of some shows.

RSVP Bonamici Hosts Student Loan Know Your Rights Webinar with Experts

Student loan borrowers: I’m holding a webinar on Jan 10 with experts Mike Pierce (@millennialdebt.bsky.social) and Oregon Student Loan Ombuds Lane Thompson to help borrowers understand their repayment options and rights under federal law.

In 2024, we said #FIREMOHELA! https://www.mohelapapers.org/

2024 was also the year of The MOHELA Papers!

⤷@theSBPC & @AFTunion dropped themohelapapers.org exposing MOHELA’s scheme to deny service to 8M borrowers

⤷Senate hearing, investigation, & lawmaker push for @MOHELA's termination

⤷@AFTunion lawsuit against MOHELA

In 2024, Some Good Things Happened for Borrowers: The CFPB banned Navient and returned $100 million to borrowers.

This year, the @CFPB permanently banned student loan giant Navient from the federal student loan market and returned $100 million to harmed borrowers.

The lesson? Borrower voices combined with public enforcement can be harnessed to drive systemic change!

2024 was a tough year for student loan borrowers—but we fought back and won some key victories.

2024 was tough for student loan borrowers.

Return to repayment was a disaster & millions still face crushing debt.

But we also proved hard fights can bring real change. We fought back—and WON key victories to protect people & challenge power.

⇢https://protectborrowers.org/2024-sbpc-highlights/

Hey heyyyyy

Thanks, @dcollier74.bsky.social!

See you soon @aefpweb.bsky.social

You love to see it!

creenshot of PBA/Seven Letters polling slide deck page 4 showing student debt relief drove ⅓ of voters to the polls. Poll question: Regardless of how you voted, did any of the following issues motivate you to vote this year? Student debt relief: 12% “only reason I voted” 23% “very motivating” 20% “somewhat motivating” 45% “did not motivate me”

🗳️NEW POLL🗳️

The high cost of college & student debt motivated an astounding ⅓ of voters across party lines to vote in the 2024 election. ⅔ of Republicans trust Trump to make student debt more affordable.

Full @thesbpc.bsky.social/PBA/Seven Letter poll: protectborrowers.org/release-nove...

Clarence Thomas’ Latest Pay-to-Play Scandal Finally Connects All the Dots There has never been a straighter line between Thomas' unethical conduct and his jurisprudence.

On this week’s Amicus, @dahlialithwick.bsky.social and I walked through the new Clarence Thomas scandal—and how it makes the right’s pay-to-play scheme for SCOTUS access look pretty undeniable. Excerpt here: slate.com/news-and-pol...

i’m begging elon musk to purchase the company that has my private student loans, put them out of business due to stupidity please

welcome to all new bluesky users. please keep in mind that it is still in beta. there are many features still missing, so please be patient. for example, you may notice that this app loads posts and then shows them to you, instead of not doing that for some reason.

It’s so quiet on here. You guys used to be fun.

Rip sweet time suck

I survived COVID as a professional policy advocate by power mapping via Twitter. I knew who people listened to across media, policy, academia. I *saw* connections. I (virtually) twisted arms.

Together, we shut the whole damn student loan system off.

This is a huge loss, even in 2023.

Current baseline: I don’t think anything is going to replace the talent-scout/assignment-desk nature of Peak Twitter that built a lot of careers, in addition to making a lot of great work.

I get the panic for those (like myself) who used that, but the quicker we acknowledge it the better. Thoughts?