Brad Lipton

Or was this a "we cover Trump's words and do no follow up on the actual reality" type deal?

I do wonder about some of the reporting on this. Seems clear @warren.senate.gov came ready to play, and there has been crickets from the admin on this since Trump's "announcement." Maybe reporters who covered Trump's initial pronouncement should start mentioning that?

Snowy night pork goulash. Recipe America’s Test Kitchen

Stuffed shells with peas fennel and spinach. Recipe by America’s Test Kitchen

7/ As I said, woo boy.

12 U.S. Code § 5519 - Exclusion for auto dealers

6/ Garbage in, garbage out. But there are more errors! The report adds in the same dopey extrapolated “costs” to the auto market. The CFPB is expressly forbidden from regulating auto dealers… www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/...

5/ It gets much, much wackier after that. They then extrapolate from this single (not a) “natural experiment” to every other market that the CFPB supposedly regulates, based on… complaint volume…?!?!

What Is The Secondary Mortgage Market? | Bankrate Your lender might sell your mortgage in the secondary mortgage market. See what that means and how the secondary loan market works.

4/ But here they are two different things! Is the difference in cost due to the regulation? Uhh. No. Among many (many) other things, there is a completely different market for high risk loans. That affects prices! This is not a real study. www.bankrate.com/mortgages/se...

3/ Usually a “natural experiment” is when two different jurisdictions regulate the same thing differently. That at least in theory lets you see the effect of the regulation.

2/ Where to begin? The report relies on a “natural experiment” between highly regulated high-cost mortgages and less regulated lower interest ones. I do not think those words mean what you think they mean…

1/ Woo boy. This CFPB “study.” Truly a sad, sick joke. You can really see the Admin watching its numbers sink into the toilet on affordability & thrash in response. Would be funny if not so bleak. If this is their case against the CFPB… wow. They clearly hate what they don’t understand.🧵

Duck served with @smittenkitchen.bsky.social lentil-potato salad (cooked in duck fat) and Alison Roman fennel lemon anchovy salad

A monopolistic private equity company has caused a crisis of typefaces at the CFPB. Here's the story: indebt.substack.com/p/this-week-...?

That and much more in this week's edition of This Week In Debt from @borrowerjustice.bsky.social!

Rainy day duck

Dan Dan noodles from the new Little Tiger Dumplings in Farragut square DC

7/ Say it with me:

This administration is not serious about affordability.
This administration is not serious about affordability.
This administration is not serious about affordability.

6/ That also ignores everything else the CFPB could do on affordability:

Medical debt. Credit reporting errors that jack up loan prices. Rental fees. Junk fees. A thousand other pressure points.

Even the Trump FTC may be doing something on rental prices. Meanwhile, the CFPB is basically dark.

Press Release: Trump-Vought Consumer Financial Protection Bureau takes steps to reduce the number of people who seek help from the consumer agency - Americans for Financial Reform FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 9, 2026 CONTACTS: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org; Stephen Rouzer, srouzer@nclc.org ; Nicholas Rubando nrubando@consumerfed.org, Ruth Sussswein, ruth.s...

5/ Consumer complaints more than DOUBLED in 2025. How many billions were taken by abuses that would otherwise have been deterred? We’ll never know.
bit.ly/4rKIcct

Press Release: Trump-Vought Consumer Financial Protection Bureau takes steps to reduce the number of people who seek help from the consumer agency - Americans for Financial Reform FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 9, 2026 CONTACTS: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org; Stephen Rouzer, srouzer@nclc.org ; Nicholas Rubando nrubando@consumerfed.org, Ruth Sussswein, ruth.s...

4/ And that still understates the damage, because it leaves out deterrence.

Wall Street and scammers know the CFPB is off the beat. It’s open season on real people.

3/ Before Trump, the CFPB sent hundreds of examiners into banks and nonbanks every day to enforce the law.

Those exams got back billions for consumers and forced companies to change their illegal practices.

It’s now been nearly a year since the CFPB conducted an exam.
bsky.app/profile/brad...

2/ The $19B comes from a clean, defensible tally:

• Overdraft fee rollbacks: ~$5B
• Credit card fee rollbacks: ~$10B
• Abandoned enforcement actions: ~$4B

That math is solid, but it leaves a ton out.

Trump administration's changes to the CFPB cost Americans $19B, a new report says The Trump administration has significantly reduced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's activities over the past year.

1/ I like this new @banking.senate.gov report on the cost of Trump’s unlawful near-shutdown of the CFPB.

I will say that their headline number—“at least” $19 billion—is wildly conservative. Short 🧵
apnews.com/article/cfpb...

Imagine if I were in a city and arguably the best restaurant was named The Roosevelt and it was rec'd by @lukenorris.bsky.social and I didn't go. Luckily, we don't need to find out.

6/ In short: financial education isn’t the worst thing, but it’s often a weak sauce substitute for confronting corporate power. The Epstein files make that logic uncomfortably clear.

5/ Wild that this person who ”loves” and “misses” Jeffrey Epstein, of all people, tried to get a job at the CFPB in *2012*! Really shows the cynicism of the crony capitalists.

4/ Exhibit A: the CFPB mention in the Epstein files ⬇️

CFPB Announces Start Small, Save Up Initiative | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathleen L. Kraninger today announced an initiative to help promote the importance of savings among Americans.

3/ Personally, I don’t think consumer education really hurts, but I do think focusing on financial education is often a way of trying to look like you care about people when you really don’t want to stand up to corporate power.
www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/new...

(PDF) Financial Literacy, Financial Education, and Downstream Financial Behaviors PDF | Policy makers have embraced financial education as a necessary antidote to the increasing complexity of consumers' financial decisions over the... | Find, read and cite all the research you need...

2/ There is a robust literature about the decidedly mixed effectiveness of consumer education. Compare
www.researchgate.net/publication/... with www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

1/ Remarkably, the CFPB appeared in the Epstein files last week. (I don’t think this has been covered anywhere—h/t @kirenitynow.bsky.social.) It’s about financial education! And it’s… not flattering. Short thread on financial education, corporate power, and, yes, Epstein/CFPB 🧵

That @lenorepalladino.bsky.social might know what she’s talking about….