On the recordMay 5, 2010
I appreciate that. And picking up on that point, the CFPA is critical to provide consumers information. But if you go back down to No. 5 on that list, strengthening community banks, this strengthens community banks because so much of the problem occurred outside of the financial institutions in the first place. Many of these subprime mortgages, many of these bad loans didn't originate with community banks. The community banks were doing the right thing. But there was no regulation of the behavior of these nonfinancial entities. So for the first time, the CFPA will step in and provide regulation over the product itself. So it doesn't matter how you structure your entity to avoid regulation. The regulation will come in the form of the product. So if you're offering a consumer product which is determined to be a bad product for consumers, you will be prohibited from offering that, regardless of the type of entity that you are. This is important because banks are very wary of regulators and for good reason, especially community banks, who have regulators coming in all the time to make sure that safety and soundness is being complied with and to make sure that consumers are being treated fairly.
