Transcripts For CSPAN2 Richard Cordray Watchdog 20240713

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As i looked at tonights bio, i realize it sort of works backward in time, and unit take the time to change and i didnt take the time to change that, so working backward, Richard Cordray is previously the democratic nominee for ohio in 2018. Before that, the first director of the Consumer Financial protectionbureau from 20122017. Cordray served as ohios attorney general, solicitor general and treasurer. In 2008 he received the Financial Services champion award from the Small Business the u. S. Small buzz Administration Business administration. He was an adjunct professor if at Ohio State University college of law and served as representative for the 33rd ohio house district, was also the first solicitor general in that states history. He was the editor editorinchif the university of ohio law review. His book watchdog how protecting consumers can save our families, our economy and our democracy, is the subject of tonights timely talk. Please join me in welcoming richrd ard cordray. Thank you,ware richard. And thank you for making this format available during these challenging times. Im glad to have the chance to be with you virtually and to talk about my new book, watchdog. Watchdog is a story that is very timely to our Society Today and to our economy today, and as we move into another financial crisis, we need to brace ourselves for the same types of problems that we have seen before. The book is about consumers. And who are consumers . Consumers are all of us, every one of us is somebody who goes into the financial marketplace if every day and makes decisions and makes choices, and its out of those billions of decisions that we make every day that the economy of the United States of america, the most powerful, the most affluent economy the world has ever seen, has its, has its activity generated. Now, when i started the book, i wanted to start with some stories about average consumers; that is, you and me and the people we know, our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. What i want people to understand is consumers often face challenging situations. And they sometimes get into problems that are not of their own making. Some responses are of their own make, but theres in situations where people are misled or cheated or mistreated in the financial marketplace, and i start with a variety of those. Im talking about people who are using products that we all use like credit cards, like auto loans if youre buying a car or a truck, like mortgages if you buy a house. Very few people buy a house with cash. Some do, most dont. Student loans, an increasingly prevalent fact of life for so many families across this country trying to finance an education for their children or grandchildren. And people run into problems, and they often are stuck. They dont know where to go, they dont know where to turn. They often find that when theyre dealing with large Financial Companies, they get no response or they get the run around, and they often cant get satisfaction, and that is alienating and creates a sense of disrespect that is widespread. We all know those feelings of being on hold for long periods of time or being told nothing can be done about that for this or that reason thats often buried in the fine print. So thats the nature of consumers. Its important for us to know were not alone in facing these challenges. Sometimes you may feel youre the only one who didnt understand that or the only one to whom this happens. Okay. So im going to resume at this point. We had technical difficulties for a moment, and i may be repeating myself slightly, but one of the important things for people to realize is Consumer Finance has dramatically changed in the last two generations, really since world war ii. There was very little credit available to our grandparents. It wasnt a big part of their lives. They didnt face a lot of risk. They couldnt get into a huge amount of financial trouble. But in todays society, fast forward two generations, credit card spending is pretty ubiquitous among americans. Auto loans are a big part of peoples lives in any part of the country where people drive to work. Mortgages are the way in which we buy houses, and they are a significant obligation. And Student Loans are now a very prevalent part of life for many families, and people can carry those loans for years, even for decades. So people have a lot more opportunity that credit provides, but they face a lot more risk and get into more trouble, so this is a bigger piece of our lives. This brings us to the financial crisis of 2008 which was caused by widespread irresponsible and predatory mortgage lending that caused many families to lose their homes during that crisis and really upended the entire economy. That led to congressional reform to try to prevent a crisis like that from happening again, and it created as part of that reform an idea, an idea that has been put forward by thenprofessor, nowsenator Elizabeth Warren for a Consumer Agency to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. Her very straightforward analogy that was a winning argument for many was that we had gotten to the point in america where it is basically impossible to sell someone a toaster with a 20 chance of bursting into flames and burning down their house. Finish but it is entirely was entire legal to sell them a mortgage that had a 20 chance of putting them into foreclosure and putting them out on the street with their families. That we werent providing protection for financial products, was a huge oversight. And the financial regulatory system in washington was really focused on the big banks and the Financial Companies themselves. It was about keeping them safe and sound, it was about making sure that they prosperedded over time. Thats important. Its important to remember that the types of Consumer Protection too if your bank is closing up, its got doing not going to be good for the customers. But it was important to turn around 180 degrees and look at the customers of these institutions and realize that if they were mistreated in the marketplace, something was wrong, and we needed to redress the balance and rebalance the marketplace so that consumers had the protection and support they need in order to flourish. If we have strong consumers in our society, were going to have a stronger or economy. And, again, it was mortgage lending of consumerfinanced markets that broke and upset the chi and hurt us economy and hurt us so horribly in 2009, 2010. So this book is about consumers and the problems they faced, its about Consumer Finance and how it has changed, and its about the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and the role and importance of the work that it engages in to protect people across america. Now, something thats important to realize is as Consumer Finance if has expanded in our society, so has the position of the financial sector. Financial services are becoming a much bigger part of our economy. Over this period they really doubled in size, and we now carry its a staggering figure almost 40,000 per person of Consumer Debt in america today. And that means the Financial Services industry has grown in clout and might and importance, especially in the corridors of power this washington. There is more money spent on lobbying, theres more money spent on Campaign Contributions by the financial industry than by any other part of our economy. And so when you have a new agency, a Little Agency like the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau Whose Mission is to make sure that it oversees the Financial Companies and holds them accountable for mistreating their customers, theres bound to be significant pushback. And there was. I tell some of the political story in the book. First of all, the fight that preceded my time in washington over creating the agency in the first place, and then the secondary fight that that developed over blocking the first director of the bureau which turned out to be me as the first nominee. I was blocked from being confirmed by the senate for two full years while they battled over trying to weaken the agency. And i come back to that fight later in the book in part four where i talk about what it was like to serve for almost a full year under the Trump Administration where i was continuing to push forward the agency as holding Financial Companies accountable for their misdeeds and the new Trump Administration had a deregulatory mindset and was really at odds with me. And i talk about some of the battles that we had back and forth over the course of that year and efforts that that weree to have me fire or have me intimidated into not doing my job the way i saw and understood that job to be which, again, was to rebalance the marketplace and give consumers a louder voice and a bigger role in the economy. Let me give you an indicative story from the book. Its a story about a Young Service member named ari and his father. Ari went into the service, and he went to basic training. And like many Young Service members, he was leaving home for the first time, and he was going to be on his own for the first time having to manage his own finances. Those people are ripe targets, and financial predators know it. They realize that these are often unsophisticated, naive, inexperienced consumers, but they had a guaranteed paycheck from the u. S. Government. And what youll find is that pred if story Financial Services congregate around military bases. This has been mapped around the country, and its been described as like grizzly bears next to the stream when the salmon are coming upstream to spawn. And they will try to sell Service Members high cost loans, high cost products, especially cars and trucks, especially electronics. And this is what happened with ari. He wanted, like many young people who are on their own for the first time and now making money, he wanted to buy his first set of wheels. And so he went out and he found a lender that looked like a very legitimate lender called the miles Lending Program which was military installment loans and educational services. Sounds very legit, doesnt it . And when he walked out of that lenders showplace, he had bought a used dodge ram truck. It was costing him 70 of his take home income, and some of that was undisclosed fees, which is against the law, some of it was misleading addon products that were basically worthless that he was charged for those, and that was folded into the price. He didnt understand that, it was all in the fine print. But that was what he was saddled with, and for years to come most of his take home pay was going to pay for this truck. When he was deployed to go overseas, he turned his finances over to his father and kind of confessed and explained his situation. His father was outraged at what had happened and tried to undo it. But when he tried to work with the lender to have the loan changed, he was asked didnt ari sign the paperwork . Well, yes, he did. Case closed, that was the end of the story. Or so they thought. And for many people like ari, he was stuck. His father, though, didnt let it rest at that. He complained to everybody he could find, and eventually he found his way to this newfangled agency hed never if heard of called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and he filed a complaint with the bureau. Our folks investigated the complaint, and they found the undisclosed fees and the misleading addon products where he was deceived in the marketing of those products, and we brought an enforcement action. We found that the miles Lending Program was a nationwide string of lenders, and the same thing had happened to 50,000 other Service Members, not just ari. And we brought ab enforcement action and recovered millions of dollars back for the consumers who were harmed by that and reformed the terms of their accounts. So we fixed the problem for ari and 50,000 other Service Members. That was the kind of good work that the bureau did holding these lenders to account. But it went even one step further, and this is something that only government can do is to understand a pattern of a problem and figure out how to fix it. What we did was we found that ari had been told that he had to have the loan be repaid out of his military salary through the Allotment Program which meant that the lender got their money before it ever went to his account. He had lost control of his own budget, and he could not prioritize some other payment that month if he preferred. This had to be paid out first. The Allotment Program had been created years ago as a convenience to Service Members when they were deployed overseas. This was before the advent of Online Banking which is now so easy and convenient and typically free at most institutions. And debt collectorsed had begun using the allotment system as a onesided collection tool requiring Young Service members to sign up to have the loan repaid through the Allotment Program. They didnt realize that was an option. They didnt understand, that was something in the fine print. And we went to the pentagon, and they created a task force and worked with us, and they ended up reforming the Allotment Program to make it illegal to use the awe lotment program for Allotment Program for high Cost Electronics and auto purchases for Service Members. So thats a story that is indicative of what the bureau could do. But providing the muscle and having the insight of being able to analyze markets. Ari thought he was the only one with this problem. He wasnt. There were thousands, tens of thousands of others who were affected, and there was a broader systemic problem that could be fixed here. And my point in the book watchdog is the Consumer Bureau is emblematic of what we can do with government when government didnt focus only on those with clout and those at the top of the pyramid. When its focused on middle class and working class americans and understands their problems and the problems of the average american household, we can put americans first, put consumers first and see to it that they get a fair shake. Thats something we need to do in Society Today, and its how democracy works. And thats a sample of how it is that i say that protecting consumers can save not only our families, families like aris, not only our economy by strengthening consumers who are the back bone of our economy in this market mace, but also democracy by giving people a stake and having them understand that government can actually do something for them, make things better for them. And its the kind of structural change that we could use across the entire government to make our government as good as its people. So im going to take a break there and just pause and open this up to questions and answers. Im sure you have a lot of questions, and we can talk about anything youd like including how the Current Crisis affects consumers, something that ive been talking about a bit around the country, or anything from the book or anything that ive said tonight. So have at it. Ware, you going to bring me up . Josh, you going to bring me up . Im having trouble getting your video. Okay. Then you might need somebody to there we go. I think were waiting to bring ware on the line to handle questions, and ill handle answers. Sounds great. Lets see. Our first question, hold on one second. It comes from kevin. Sorry, a little discombobulated. Do you think that the way to change the perception of financial protection as a zero sum battle against business interest where for consumers to win, businesses must lose . Yes. And, in fact, i talk a lot about this in my book. The reality is that when you create evenhanded oversight of the market as a whole and you provide more protection for consumers, theres somebody else whos getting a big advantage here, and that is lawabiding businesses who are trying to do the right thing the by their customers but often have to compete against other businesses that are willing to cut corners and even violate the law to get an advantage. What happens when youre a Better Business, if you will, as the Better Business bure to row has that slogan, whos trying to do the right thing and suddenly somebody else has an advantage over you by breaking the law. You break the law with them and level that Playing Field, or you lose market share. This happened a lot in the runup to the financial crisis. There were responsible mortgage lenders who were losing out to irresponsible predatory mortgage lenders who would mislead customers about what a teaser rate was and whether that rate would remain over the life of the loan, or they had other products that allowed them to sell higher cost mortgages than the borrower really deserved. And yet the traditional lenders, Credit Unions and Smaller Banks were losing market share to those people. So better oversight of the market, better law and order in the market, if you will, actually serves the businesses that are high road businesses who dont have to compete against those who take the hoe road and undercut them. Low road. Another way is, especially coming out of the financial crisis, we needed to restore confidence for consumers in the marketplace. They needed to understand that it wasnt a rigged game. They needed to have confidence about what they were doing and whether they were getting a fair shake. And if people dont have that confidence, often they wont participate. An example of that is remittance transfers. These are International Money transfers, people sending money overseas often to loved ones or to family members. If people dont have confidence in that market, if they dont think an error will be corrected or dispute will be resolvedded or the terms will be fair, then theyll end up packing the money into suitcases and taken on trips with them and bearing all the risk of that, and it creates a black market. But if you create confidence and a good sensible set of rules thats evenhandedly enforced in the market, its better for the market as a whole. And t its better not only for businesses, but better for the long view. Thats an important point and great question. Im actually going to stay with another question from kevin. Do you have any concern that the high Interest Rate fees charged by collection agencies and permitted under state law 12 , for instance 12 , for instance, in washington are abusive when rates are so low . Yeah, i think those are abusive rates and, actually, it has to do with the clunkiness and sort of sluggishness of legal changes in our society. The Interest Rates that can be charged should be keyed very directly to the going market rates. What right now 12 is a vestige of a time when Interest Rates were much higher, and it is an unfair rate in a situation where the average marketbased bank account is paying you 0. 05 . And so thats just an unfortunate aspect of the laws. They need to be more nimble, they need to be kept uptodate, and thats wrong. But by the way, that 12 Interest Rate which is high and no question about it pales in comparison to what it is to get a payday loan or an online loan of the kind that are offered to people that often charge tripledigit Interest Rates. I talk in the book account watchdog watchdog about the fight against the payday lending industry. It was a really deep and bitter fight. It led to a rule that we adopted to rein in payday lending around the country by requiring them to make a reasonable assessment of whether people could repay the lopes. They fought that tooth and nail. They continue to fight it, and the current leadership is actually trying to undo the rule, and thats an unfortunate direction, and i hope people will speak out against that effort. But thats something thatll probably be tied up in the courts for some time. Many states dont have payday lending, about a third of the states have no payday lending. The other twothirds do at very high rates, and in all states there are these online loans that find their way into states sometimes illegally but trap people into cycles of debt that are very destructive. I want to ask you a followup on that, and if anybody knows the story of Washington State better, please correct me or add some detail in our questions right now. Washington had its own run with payday lending just a few years ago where there was a big push to try to regulate the industry. I remember at the time being baffled why a handful of legislators were willing to fight so hard for an try that seemed so transparently aligned against the interests of their citizens. And these were legislators that otherwise had pretty strong track records of service to the underdog, for lack of a better way to put it. Can you talk a little bit about why how payday lending has been able to develop beachheads in legislatures around the country and hold on in the states where it has managed to hold on . Yeah. Its a phenomenon ive seen around the country, and it has two causes, wier. The first is that there are a hot of legislators who are supported by the payday lending industry through Campaign Contributions and other means. They have been very effective at throwing money around in the corridors of the legislatures in the state capitols around the country. That is part of it, okay . But another part of it and realistically is theres an argument here that having this kind of credit available even at very high prices is somehow helpful to people. Now, e personally dont agree with that argument, and at the bureau we did an analysis of millions to of payday loans. And what we found was they repeatedly trap people into cycles of debt so that you got into a shortterm loan, you thought you could repay it, you couldnt. You were going to get stuck this it, you were going to have to pay fee after fee to renew the loan every two weeks, and eventually youd end up paying more than you ever borrowed in the first place. It happened all the time and caused some problems. But they make this argument with a straight face that access to credit is always a good thing even if some of that credit is terrible credit. Its at such a high price and has such conditions on it that it ruins people financially. And that was the problem i had with it, was the evidence showed us that that was true for a lot of borrowers. Thank you. June asks, is there anything that the cfpb can do to reduce the Interest Rates charged on Student Loans . It seems many people pay very high rates, and their account balances increase over time even when they make regular payments. Yeah. I talk in the book about how effective the cfpb could be in some of the different Consumer Finance markets and how the markets do differ from one another in significant respects. For example, in the Mortgage Markets and the credit card markets, the cfpb has Broader Authority to try to rein in bad practices, and we were pretty effective at that. The safeguards we put in place for the Mortgage Market were such that it is difficult to think that we would ever have a financial crisis for the same reason ever again. And now as were coming into this pandemic crisis, which is very different, we have more options available for homeowners to stay in their homes and defer fore to closures, and we also have foreclosures, and we also have better rules and better mortgages occupant there, so and weve safeguarded that market to a significant degree. There were two other markets i talk about in the book where we had a lot of troubles, and thats because our authority was partial and not complete. One was auto loans where we had authority over awe low lenders but not auto dealers. They got themselves carved out of the legislation because of their political muscle. And when you go to buy a car and you get a loan, you often get it from a dealer, not from a lender directly. And that made it difficult for us to address that market. The other is student lopes. We had authority over private Student Loans, but we had to work cooperate ily with the u. S. Department of education to deal with federal Student Loans. We had a great relationship with the obama administrations secretary arne duncan. We worked effectively on some of these problems. But when betsy devos came in under donald trump, she cut off all of that cooperation. She took over those issues. There hasnt been very Effective Work done for student the loan borrowers who get into a lot of trouble managing that debt. In terms of the Interest Rate, which you asked about specifically, thats a haw that would have to be changed by congress. Theres been good proposals in place to try to bring those Interest Rates down, keep them to rates that banks themselves pay to access money at the Federal Reserve discount window. Something like that needs to be done. On the same principle, we had the question a couple moments ago about the Debt Collection statute in the state of washington charging 12 . Thats an outmoded law, should be brought uptodate. These Interest Rates should be key off current Interest Rates to keep people from being charged too much. Thats a pretty good segway into bettys question which is the chief concern of the Trump Administration is trying to take away much of the power of the agency. Im a realtor, and i saw so many clients lose everything. What can you tell us about what is happening with the agency right now . Yeah, good question. And, by the way, we did a lot of work with realtors at the Consumer Bureau because the Mortgage Market, the Real Estate Market is the biggest Consumer Finance market of them all, and everything we were doing potentially affected realtors and the way they make a living. And one of the things we found was that the reforms we were putting in place, especially a way of ambushing buyers at the closing table, was helping them be more satisfied and to have fewer regrets and fewer problems after a transaction closed. It was a big problem that people would get ambushed at the closing table with new fees and new problems that had never been raised before, but now theyre stuck. Theyre selling a house, theyre buying a house, they dont have a a lot of options, often they just had to absorb any extra costs and very disgruntled, you know, take it or leave it but pretty much have to take it. And we sod a lot of that. Solved a lot of that. Realtors like that because realtors it is are based their business is based on repeat business. They want satisfied customers. They want customers who look forward and look forward to their next house purchase, maybe moving up, maybe moving somewhere else around the country and arent worried that theyre going to get screwed, not a practical legal term, at the closing table. So that was an important change that we made. But in terms of realtors and others that the Consumer Bureau dealt with, we tried to take a lot of input from them. We reached out to them a lot. We tried to understand exactly what challenges they were facing. When we had what we called the know before you owe mortgage rule which provided more transparent is city around the fordamage transaction and the home sale the mortgage transaction, and to go back to the very first question, that turned out to be a very good thing for the market place as well. So actually who asked this question . I want to make sure i honor them. Dave wants to know then what would you expect to occur in the realm of Consumer Protection under a Biden Administration . I guess ill just add based on bidens past work in the legislature or any scuttlebutt you may have heard about a bide cabinet. Any biden cabinet. Any thoughts . Yes, i do. Vice President Biden was a strong supporter of the Consumer Bureau. We worked with him particularly on Student Loans and on the whole middle class agenda that he headed up for president obama during the administration. I remember and i talk about it in the book a particular scene in which we were first bringing out the student aid shopping sheet to help people and their families, young People Better understand what kind of decisions they were making about the cost of college and making hardheaded decisions about what loans they were taking on. And i remember and talk about how at the white house we had an event for that, and it was vice President Biden, secretary duncan, myself and the heads of several universities around the country, university systems. And vice President Biden talked very point grantly about his own personal poignantly about his own personal experience when he was getting ready to think about going to college and his fathers discomfort because nobody in his family had gone to college, and his father wasnt comfortable, wasnt familiar with and felt awkward about the situation. You could feel, this is something very special about vice President Biden, hes not lost that mentality of what its like to be a middle class kid growing up in a middle class family. He very much feels that. When he talks about these things, theyre very personal to him. He would be a strong supporter of the Consumer Bureau. One of my reasons for writing this book is it is a road map for putting the bureau back together and making it aggressive for consumers again. It has not been aggressive for consumers under the Trump Administration, and thats been missed. If you dont enforce the law, if you dont hold people accountable, they will edge their way toward taking advantage of people, and you need to do that. But i have no doubt that vice President Biden, as president , would feel strongly about supporting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and ive had the privilege of advising some of his, him and his team on these types of issues. Ad road map is suggests a road map suggests terrain that, you know, we can command or weve got some experience, and i think its safe to say were in terrain right now we dont know very much. And i think its daves question, he wants to know what are the three most important things the cfpb could be doing right now in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic to protect consumers. Its a great question, dave. And its something ive been thinking a lot about. I just with two of my former colleagues from the bureau published a white paper about the covid19 pandemic and how its affecting consumers. And i called on the Consumer Bureau right now, the cfpb, to be much more aggressive about protecting consumers. Consumers need that right now. Consumers are in distress. Many of them dont have money coming in, theyre getting behind on bills, theyre not able to pay their rent for their mortgage, theyre in danger of eviction or foreclosure. Theyre behind on auto loans and might have their car or truck repossessed which for many people in ma parts of the country could be disastrous. Theres a white paper published, but let me just to answer your question very directly what should the Consumer Group be doing . Right now, number one, it has tremendous access to realtime information. Most Economic Data comes with a lag. It takes months to collect, it takes months to organize and analyze, and its always very much behind. The Consumer Bureau has a public complaint database where consumers pour in their problems and their issues day in and day out, and they can diagnose whats going on and understand the challenges people are facing and get that information to the rest of the government. Thats something they need to be doing can. Number two, they cant be going easy on the Consumer Finance businesses right now. If you let mortgage servicers off the hook from doing their job, then who will bear the brunt of that . Its the consumers that they dont serve effectively. So, for example, right now under the cares act almost half, little more than half the Mortgage Market is supposed to have access to forbearance if they cant pay their mortgage this month or next month. But if the mortgage servicers arent on the job, if they arent answering the phone, if theyre creating long wait times, if theyre not following through, that relief wont get to people, middle class families around the country. So its not a time to ease off the mortgage services, its time to put pressure on them to make sure theyre doing their jobs effectively. And i also talk about debt collectors who are going to be harassing americans because many people are falling behind on bills, and its hard for debt collectors to collect. They collect on commission, so they dont get paid if they dont collect, so the amount of harassment and abuse is going to be magnified. Its already being magnified. We need to think about how we hold debt collectors accountable to the standards in the law of decent treatment of the human beings who are the objects of their activity. Thats at least three main priorities, although there are 16 different issues that we talk about in that white paper, and its available on mediums through the internet. Well try to find a way to link to that in social media tomorrow, everybody. O. K. I was going to ask you where we could find it. So to round out this little sort of band of questions, how concerned or scared are you about the future existence or effectiveness of the cfpb . In of light of the Trump Administrations efforts to destroy it. Can a Biden Administration restore it to [inaudible] yeah. This traces some of the arc of the book, watch dog, it. Because at the beginning, as i say, the financial industry wasnt reconciled to the fact that there was going to be an agency that was going to be holding them accountable. And they started by blocking hi nomination and arguing that there should be reforms made to the agency to weaken it or cripple it. That was true from the outset, and that dogged our steps all the way through. But we had as our mentality that the right way to handle that was not to retreat and do nothing which would have muted a lot of the criticism, but, in fact, to be aggressive for consumers and show that we were making progress and let the public see that we were able to do things effectively to make them better off. We returned 12 billion to 30 million americans over the sick years that i was the director the six years that i was the director which was money that had been wrongly taken from them that we put back in their pockets. That was really important work, and it showed that government could be effective for the little guy, for the average family. Not just for the big guys. They always have their lobbyists and lawyers on the job in washington, but whos standing up for the other consumer . That was, that was us. That was our job to do that. And so, you know, this is, this is the road map that i was trying to set. And by the time i ended up stepping down toward the end of my term and under the new leadership when they put the cfpb into retreat on a number of fronts, by the end of a year or two you know Mick Mulvaney who was a vehement critic of the bureau and really a prejudiced, partisan critic of the bureau, he had begrudgingly act a knowledged that the bureau is here to stay, and its an important part of our government. And i believe that that is true. It is here to stay, it is an important part of our government. It can do more, it can do less. I believe it should be doing more. But i have no doubt that its going to stay on the job. And what we need is we need a vigorous Consumer Bureau thats standing up for people, thats leveling that Playing Field and Holding Businesses accountable so that the Better Businesses have the benefit of having the law enforced to get the worst businesses. Thats really important in our society. Im sorry that i put your rousing climax in the middle of questions. We still have a couple minutes to go, but it is rea assuring to know that you see a Bright Future ahead for the agency if we can weather this next little bit of time. Im going to eric, the next question doesnt sort of easily sort of fall into, fall into form, so im going to reframe it. He wants us to think of elementary school, Public School students and the consumers of education in our society and has a question thats loosely about the balance of federal, state and local funding and if the cfpb in its work with the department of education and secretary duncan as you described, if you were able to make any advances or have any impact on, on the fortunes of Public School attendees across the country through the agenciment. Im going to take that question in a particular direction because Chapter Eight of my book is is all about personal finance education. I think this is an incredibly important subject. I think its an essential subject for young people as they go through school and get to the point where they graduate and go out into the world whether that is going into the work force and being responsible for their own Financial Affairs or going to college where they immediately confront decisions about Student Loan Debt that may dog them for years. And where do people get any guidance about how to manage their finances. Well, some people get it at home. Not nearly as many as wed like. And in some of those homes theyre getting some of the bad lessons that their parents have run into problems with before them. And, by the way, in many homes theres not much said about finance because its a sore subject for a lot of parents. You know, if theyre on the edge and they know that theyre fighting and theyre anxious about their finances, about staying afloat and making ends meet, they dont want to talk about it really in front of their children, so its often a taboo subject. I talk in the book about how important it is at the federal, state and local level that we promote Financial Education as an indispensable subject. What is the one subject that young people will need to know no matter where they go in life, no matter what field theyre in, no matter what career they have . It isnt necessarily science, it isnt necessarily social studies, it is very much personal finance. Because whatever else they do, theyre going to have to be able to manage their affairs, avoid making big mistakes and try to put their best foot forward in providing for themselves and their families. We used to do a better job of this a hundred years ago. I can show you textbooks that people showed me from a hundred years ago where a lot of the math questions in math class were all about economic decisions and spending decisions in the household or a lot of them had to do with farms because it was an agricultural economy then, and that was kind of the business. But we need to recognize that we need more personal education in the classroom in all the other summits and we need probably a standalone course in high school so that people can really dig into this and understand it before they graduate. And every young person should have that education. What i did find at the boor row was being a federal bureau was being a federal agency, it was hard to affect that as much as i would have liked because the curriculum is typically at the state and local level in the United States. And there wasnt an education issue, we were the Consumer Bureau, not the education department. It was difficult to get can people to listen. I tried to help statelevel Public Officials team up with us to promote this in their own states, and some states are making progress on this, but its been slow. And, by the way, theres worldwide test results, i talk about this in the book, that showed that the United States is behind some of the other countries that have done more in this area. If we keep at this and keep at this for a number of years, we will strengthen consumers, households will be stronger, they will be more solvent, they will have a better future, and the economy will be stronger. Theres no question about that. Thats something we need to do in the United States of america today. Capable of many rousing climaxes and i know. Im going to give you two more opportunities. [laughter] i have a great question from dave, it dovetails, is there the a right balance of consumer education, regulation and enforcement that will truly protect consumers in the way that warren and doddfrank intended . Like do you have balance in mind . No, thats kind of a a deep, philosophical question. And if when you ask about what people intended, you know, what we found was we started from a piece of legislation thats basically words on a piece of paper about what the Consumer Bureau should be and what its mission was, what its to objectives were. We had to actually turn that into something that was flesh and blood, you know . Build an agency from scratch. That was a big part of what i talk about in the book was that the massive nature of that undertaking. And we had a lot of decisions to make about what directions to go. With we could have done this, we could have done that. We could is have done this this way, we could have done it that way. Many forks in the world and, again forks in the road, and i wanted to have this road map out here about what we were doing, why, what choices we were making and why we made them. But what i would say is that there is sort of four main tools that the bureau used. Theres education and theres improving disclosures to the consumer so that people have a clearer sense, we called it know before you owe. Theres a chapter on that in the book. Theres also more compulsory tools that bite more with the Financial Companies. Regulation where were actually changing the law that they have to live under and enforcement and supervision where were actually compelling them to do things by making sure that theyre not violating the law. And the industry always wants to push the regulators in the direction of more education and more dischose your. And, by the way disclosure. By the way, over the years more disclosure has become almost a travesty and a cakier capture of itself caricature of itself. People cant really read it, they cant really understand it. Its like a 15 president grade read 15th grade reading level when we know its much less than that for the average american, sost its designed not to be understood. So with we felt that it was important for us to use all of our tools. As i say in the book, we sort of, we called them on education and disclosure. We were working in those areas, but we raised them on enforcement and regulation by making sure those tools were being used as well. Because i just cant bear to let this conversation end, im going to actually insert a question of my own which is given your experience and the tenacity you showed to stay in the game against stiff resistance from folks who did not want the agency to have a launch to the way we see dedicated, career government officials and Civil Servants treated and mistreated in the current climate in washington, do you have [laughter] do you have is our, is our governing class, is the deep state that david rhodes is going to talk about tomorrow night, going to be willing to sort of come back into government, do you think, after what were experiencing in four years of the trumped administration . Will people be willing to take on the kinds of hard challenges that you took on to establish this agency and to help us rebuild a government in the wake of three and a half years of dismantling . Thats a great question, wier, and several aspects of a response to it. The first one is there are a lot of people in government, and this should always be understood and people should understand and respect it. So a lot of people in government are true Public Servants. They understand that public power is used for the public good, and they went into the Public Sector in order to be Public Servants and do something that helps in our society and makes things better for other people. I talk at times about my parents who work with the developmentally disabled for their careers. It wasnt all that glorious of workings it wasnt running for of work, it wasnt running for office, it was just getting up and going to work every day to make things better for someone else. Whether or not it was appreciated, whether or not it was understood, that was the job. And thats what Real Public Service is about, and plenty of people in government have that. Some people are just time servers, theyre just there to get a paycheck. Its true in every walk of life. But many people in government are real Public Servants, and they deserve our support and our respect. I will also say that in the wake of the last three and a half years, a period where the leadership in the federal government has not respected the government, hasnt understood the government and hasnt tried to support the government so that when we now have come into a crisis where we needed a government response that was effective and that that was timy and that was powerful, we didnt have it. Weve come to see and pay the price for this hollowing out of the government that has been so dramatic and so illtimed and so unfortunate. I think there are a lot of people with the public servicemennalty who are service mentality who are itching to get back in there and set things right because they are really patriotic people who believe in america and know that in america the government is not the problem, its not the enemy. It needs to be our ally and a supporter. Thats what i talk about with the Consumer Bureau. It can really help muddle class americans middle class americans and should. And thats what the government should be. The third piece of that and my last part of the answer is theres lots of other dedicated Public Servants not in the federal government, but in the state and local government. And they are doing their darnedest right now to make up for things that are not happening in washington. Its best when we cooperate together. When i was at the bureau in washington, we worked closely with state attorneys general and the state financial regulators. We worked with mayors on sop of these issues, Financial Empowerment and the like. But if we can get everybody rowing together, thats for the best. Even when thats not happening, the state and local officials can pick up a lot of slack, and they are doing that around the country, and im really proud of them. And, by the way, theres a cadre of former cfpb people who are now in state positions, and they are making a big difference in their communities across the country. Thats great. Im really thinking that hoping that it will still be a attractive for people to want to serve out of the sense of duty that youre describing on the other side of the treatment that people are receiving right now. At every level of government, but especially in the other washington. As for our last question, i will turn to joe. He says my senators and representatives in the house are aligned with your thinking. What else can i do as someone concerned about these issues to help make positive changes for consumers . Thats a good question, and, you know, it goes back to being a good citizen of the country and activism. Your voice matters. You can speak up and speak out and be supportive of these efforts. You know, if you help give visibility to this book watchdog, it will create more Awareness Among the public in this country and more of a groundswell of support for that agency not just for it to exist, but for it to do its job the way its supposed to do it. And you can provide a groundswell of support for Public Servants across the country. Another thing you can do is when you have a problem involving any aspect of your finances or your credit, file a complaint with the Consumer Bureau. Many people do that. Tens of thousands. 30,000 each month do that, and it gives the bureau a real birds eye view of exactly whats affecting you in your community. Its important data. As i say, it became the voice of the consumer funneled right into the middle of that agency and kept us on task of knowing what we should do to address the problems of people around the country. But i would say political advocacy, Political Support and also an a awareness of why this is so important and helping others be aware matters enormously. And, believe me, it makes a difference. And every time people would say to me that, in fact, one of the things i talk about in the book, kind of funny, was when we would get money back for people, they often were curious and uncertain what this was. If they got a check in the mail from this cfpb that theyd never heard of, they would sometimes contact us and ask us if this was some sort of scam. And we were happy to reassure them that this is one check that they can and should cash, and we were on the job to work for them. People were always surprised to get their money back and to know that somebody had done a lot of work to go to the trouble of making that happen for them. Cool. These arent oversized publishers clearinghouse checks. These are bona fide, these are legitimate. Thats cool. And im assuming those were a complaint that might have been lodged new another channel, through a legislator or representative or someone. It found its way to you, and then you circle back. So suddenly youre in the picture for them in a way you thaw didnt even know you were working on their beltway half. Thats true. I talk about the irony of some of the members of congress who would complain loudly about it in public but send their constituent complaints in private so that we could work them out for them. [laughter] yeah. Of course, some people never change. Mr. Cordray, i want to thank you so much for your service, and convincing me it is going to be possible for folks to want to continue to serve in your fashion on the other side of whatever were all enduring right now. And i want to urge everybody who has listened to rich speak tonight to pick up a copy of watchdog and get the rest of the story. And for that, to his point, to be itself a that statement that the values a statement that the values that are enshrined in the agency and in this road map are actually things that a matter to us as consumers and as citizens of the country. I want to thank also shane, josh and jimmy for making the program technically e possible tonight. And i want to let you all, i want to urge you all to join us again tomorrow night to hear david rhodes in conversation with steve scherr. Thank you so much. Thank you again, rich cordray, and we will speak with you all very soon. Thanks. Byebye. As the coronavirus continues to impact the country, heres a look at how its affecting the publishing industry. Many bookstores in states that have loosened their stay at home to orders are trying to determine if they should reopen or continue with online sales n. Dallas, one of the few stores to open their doors are allowing no more than ten people in the store at a time in accordance with state guidelines to not exceed 25 capacity. And book selling remains predominantly online. Bookstores have also migrated their author events to the Virtual World n. A recent Publishers Weekly report, bookstores have found it an effective way to remain connected with their customers and have garneredded sizable audiences but have had mixed results in transferring that to book sales. Also in the news, npd book scan reports sales were flat for the week ending april 25th. Nonfiction saw a 16 decline and are now down 10 for the year. And many book festivals and conferences that were forced to cancel are now offering attendees a virtual experience. The mississippi book festival announced the cancellation of their annual august literary launch party. The bay area book festival kicked off a month of virtual author talks last weekend, and the third annual bronx book festival will take place online june 6th. Booktv will continue to bring you new programs and publishing news. You can also watch all of our archived programs anytime at booktv. Org. At a recent program at the American Enterprise institute washington, d. C. , university of Oklahoma History professor rhode islandford mcclay offered a look at American History that he hopes will rival textbooks used by students today. Here he shares his thoughts on the history of slavery in the founding of america. Hence, it would be profoundly wrong to contend as some do that the United States was founded on slavery. No. It was founded on other principles entirely, on principles of liberty and selfrule that had been discovered and defined and refined and enshrined through the tempering efforts of several turbulent centuries of european and british and American History. These foundational principles would win out in the end, though not without much struggle and strive thering and e striving and eventual blood shed. The United States enjoyed a miraculous birth but was not the product of an untroubled delivery. Few things are. I wrote these excuse me. Wrote these words before the publication of the New York Times 1619 project which i suspect you all are somewhat familiar with which does, in fact, exist on the idea that america was founded on slavery and a project that we are told will be producing and distributing materials for use in american schools to promote that idea. Absent a countervailing argument from books like mine, theres now a genuine danger that part of the education of American Students will be the teaching that slavery is part of the nations enduring makeup, its dna as they, metaphorically used, i think. A lesson that would not only be false, but pernicious. To watch the rest of this program, visit our web site, booktv. Org, and search for Wilfred Mcclay or the title of his book, land of hope, using the box at the top of the page. Excited to have you here and so toe share with everybody the full context of what we are going to be doing today. So, rana is the cofounder and ceo of ethics piba and a pioneer in emotional artificial intelligence. Were going to be having a