Are banks benefiting from re-regulation?
Major banks have fought bitterly against Obama-era rules. But they're hardly suffering.
St. John's University Law professor Jeff Sovern, writing on Public Citizen's Consumer Law & Policy Blog, sees mounting evidence that, despite their fights and protestations, most banks are thriving under the stricter rules imposed since the Great Recession and financial crisis:
There's nothing radical in the argument that well-designed regulation can help businesses thrive, by creating a level playing field and avoiding race-to-the-bottom problems. That's what consumers witnessed in the credit-card market in the years prior to the the CARD act, as major card issuers competed with practices that were finally labled unfair and deceptive in 2008 by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed and then Congress cracked down, but only after too many luckless consumers were dragged into debt they could never hope to pay off - consumer debt that deepened the damage caused by the housing bubble and subprime-mortgage crisis, which were also fueled by loose rules and a classic race to the bottom in lenders' bad practices.