Trump killing CFPB slammed as “get out of jail free card“ for Elon Musk’s X Money

Trump’s efforts to shutter the CFPB sparks demand for Elon Musk ethics probe.

See full article...

 

[Citizenkain]

I say this without reservation, but anyone ripped off by eventually using X as a bank will have deserved it.

 

[ZigZagPig]

Consumer Reports is always fighting for consumer protections. This link is to a current petition that will be routed to your state's congressional leaders. Plz add your name!

https://act.consumerreports.org/AZwsC5t

 

[nerdrage]

What kind of stupid people would let Musk anywhere near their money? Oh right, Trump voters. That's fine by me.

 

[Klinn]

But now, Republicans claim the rule "unnecessarily expands the CFPB’s authority" and creates "barriers to innovation"

More like it creates barriers to grift and fraud. The GQP can't stand for that!

 

[ubercurmudgeon]

This is step one of the kleptocracy playbook: make it harder and harder for honest citizens to put the gangsters in jail. Step two is for the gangsters to start putting honest citizens in jail.

 

[Celery Man]

CFPB is a barrier to innovation? Maybe to innovation by banks in how they screw customers over, but that’s it.

And for President Musk, that’s apparently enough.

This is all so the Nazi Elon Musk can turn X into the bank slash payment system he’s been dreaming of since the mid-90s.

Here’s a fun quote from page 82 of the Ashlee Vance biography:

The cofounders were aligned philosophically around the idea that the banking industry had fallen behind the times. Visiting a branch bank to speak with a teller seemed pretty archaic now that the Internet had arrived. The rhetoric sounded good, and the four men were enthused. The only thing stopping them was reality. Musk had a modicum of banking experience and had resorted to buying a book on the industry to help understand its inner workings. The more the cofounders thought about their plan of attack, the more they realized the regulatory issues blocking the creation of an online bank were insurmountable. "As four and five months went by, the onion just kept unwrapping," said Ho.

I love when educating yourself about the industry you want to participate in is something you “resort” to!

 

[Ryan B.]

Every time I read a story like this I have to suppress rising hopes that somebody, anybody, will succeed in holding Trump and his cronies to account for their flagrant corruption. They never have before, so why should I hope now?

 

[Celery Man]

Time is a flat circle—we're back to the era of unregulated banking and rich con-men fleecing the stupid to make themselves rich. I'm eager to get back to the top of the circle when more reasonable people make up our government, but for now we're at the nadir of the circle and the rich will legalize all the immoral and currently-legal things they want to do.

As soon as you are ~2 generations removed from the reasons for the status quo, humans wonder why we need the status quo at all, and roll it back until a new generation re-learns the painful lessons of the past.

See: vaccinations, Nazis being bad, etc.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Every time I read a story like this I have to suppress rising hopes that somebody, anybody, will succeed in holding Trump and his cronies to account for their flagrant corruption. They never have before, so why should I hope now?

Someone, somewhen, may have an opportunity and a better aim.

 

[Celery Man]

Every time I read a story like this I have to suppress rising hopes that somebody, anybody, will succeed in holding Trump and his cronies to account for their flagrant corruption. They never have before, so why should I hope now?

Trump won’t live forever, and that’s the only retribution he’ll ever see.

 

[sasenach]

At what point does Musk put an offer in to just buy the country outright?

 

[tlhIngan]

In other words, X will soon have a reputation like Paypal for financial transactions. And if you're already tolerating Paypal, why bother with X payments? At least Paypal is a known quantity, and something that shed its Elon Musk association a long time ago, when Musk sold it off to make his billions of dollars.

Though, Trump is right, it's destroying people. The CFPB is destroying Elon Musk.

 

[Sajuuk]

As soon as you are ~2 generations removed from the reasons for the status quo, humans wonder why we need the status quo at all, and roll it back until a new generation re-learns the painful lessons of the past.

See: vaccinations, Nazis being bad, etc.

Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.

Pratchett

 

[jandrese]

Every time I read a story like this I have to suppress rising hopes that somebody, anybody, will succeed in holding Trump and his cronies to account for their flagrant corruption. They never have before, so why should I hope now?

Given that one of Trump's first acts was to dissolve a number of oversight boards and directors it seems unlikely to happen. It was one of those 4D chess moves, to fire everybody who would have authority to enforce the laws you are about to break. Is it legal? Probably not, but with nobody left to enforce the laws it doesn't really matter.

 

[uesc_marathon]

Innovative theft must be protected.

 

[SpecTP]

5 CFR Para 2635.101(b)(1)

"Public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws and ethical principles above private gain"

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-5/chapter-XVI/subchapter-B/part-2635/subpart-A/section-2635.101

apparently Trump/Musk view this pledge as just lip-service.

 

[NinjaNerd56]

We are overdue for some tar and feathers parties.

”No, Senator GriftAlot…you are not being primaried. We have something involving a railroad tie in mind. Enjoy the trip.”

 

[ausername]

Ah yes, let's ask the libertarians what they think.

Oh wait.

View attachment 104451

Brief perusal of Veronique de Rugy articles on Reason includes a flat tax on both consumption and income (i.e. an extremely regressive tax system), all onboard with DOGE (in fact it isn't doing enough), wants to get rid of the SEC (because they are too lax, so instead of strengthening SEC kill it). My conclusion fuck Veronique de Rugy.

 

[MechR]

Trump won’t live forever, and that’s the only retribution he’ll ever see.

Technically your statement doesn't preclude unnatural causes. The third guy might not miss.

 

[fancysunrise]

It mostly exists to keep financial companies from fucking people to poor to really fight back, and the powerful people in this country can't have that, that won't do at all.

I had an ER debt that went to collections about a decade ago. I paid it off, but months later it came back up when a debt collector made an attempt to double dip. I told them I had paid this and sent them the letter and all that, they more or less said this sort of thing doesn't happen and implied I was lying, and reported the debt as uncollected on my credit report. I filed a complaint with the CFPB and they handled it in less than a month. I've never seen that quick of a result from a federal agency.

They appear to be effective at what they do, and what they do is police financial companies on behalf of people. Elon Musk wants to pivot twitter into payments and really really doesn't want a government watchdog doing anything that would hurt his bottom line.

That whole article was just lolbertarian handwaving.

This is where you know someone isn't coming from a great place:



This is the same exact argument used by payday and title lenders when defending their business practice of giving loans to people who lack the ability to manage their debt and. then screw them with a mountain of debt for a small loan that they're paying off long term.

I've noted some decent things from Reason before, depending on the topic, but some of these editorials... Jesus. That "source" - along with a string of other related claims - is the, ahem, Antonin Scalia Law School. And before any hesitation due to benefit of the doubt, that maybe it's a good faith, legitimate thing with a notorious benefactor, it's little more than a front for the Federalist Society and extremist, partisan lawfare. Beyond that, it linked to someone at Cato once... It's just a disingenuous rant.

It's a little funny as well, these gestures toward "libertarianism", because when Trump went to their convention they shouted him off the stage with "no wannabe dictators!". I guess it's a (small) big tent.

 

[mpfaff]

In other words, X will soon have a reputation like Paypal for financial transactions. And if you're already tolerating Paypal, why bother with X payments? At least Paypal is a known quantity, and something that shed its Elon Musk association a long time ago, when Musk sold it off to make his billions of dollars.

Though, Trump is right, it's destroying people. The CFPB is destroying Elon Musk.

Yeah, when Musk announced that he wanted to bring payments to Twitter I think the general response outside his weird superfans was "why?". Everyone who has used ebay in the last 20 years has a Paypal account. Then there's Venmo and CashApp for people who have gone out with friends. Plus everyone who has a cell phone can use Google and Apple's payments. A lot of banks are plugged into Zelle... There just isn't a demand for another payments app that's tied to that microblog site where people talk about wiping out all the trans people and whatnot.

 

[Aurich]

-1. I forgot the comments regarding these kind of stories on Ars are pretty much just echo chambers and naval gazing.

I just checked my navel and found a small ball of lint that had as cognizant a view on things as a libertarian think tank. I could hear it's tiny little raspy lint voice crying "all forms of regulation only seek to oppress the freedoms of meeeeeeen!" as I tossed it into the wastepaper basket by my desk.

Brief perusal of Veronique de Rugy articles on Reason includes a flat tax on both consumption and income (i.e. an extremely regressive tax system), all onboard with DOGE (in fact it isn't doing enough), wants to get rid of the SEC (because they are too lax, so instead of strengthening SEC kill it). My conclusion fuck Veronique de Rugy.

Truly the common clay of the new West.

 

[Chuckstar]

I’m reading a book called The Dictator's Handbook. Its fundamental thesis revolves around how those in power reward the people that keep them in power. That could be rewarding voters, but that it’s much cheaper/easier to reward a few key individuals that can help keep you in power, rather than trying to make life better for a large number of voters.

 

[MechR]

reason.com

Now there's a red flag of a name if I ever saw one.

 

[CalJake]

I'm sure others have noticed the new big thing is any type of regulation that protects consumers is now called out as "a barrier to innovation."

This is so pathetic.

 

[MechR]

I'm sure others have noticed the new big thing is any type of regulation that protects consumers is now called out as "a barrier to innovation."

This is so pathetic.

Oh, it's not new.

 

[arstekian]

Check the 2024 Phase 4 Report, its available through the second link I provided. It describes how the tech works and should get you started on exploring your question.

This seems to answer a question about exploring a method for offline payments (network is unavailable) ... this basically sounds like how some stored-value transit cards work where the readers on a bus/ferry aren't connected to the internet. The limitations here seem to be 5 offline transactions and ~300 USD (10 SEK = 0.98 USD) stored on the card, a payment terminal can only accept 12 payments and about 2000 USD. I would hesitate to call this innovative, as Suica/Mifare have been around for 20+ years.

 

[appliance]

His definition of "people" seems to be Wells Fargo executives and check cashing barons. Oh yeah - the guy who secured his $500,000,000 fraud bond is a king sub-prime repo man. Seems to specialize in victimizing military families.

 

[David Mayer]

-1. I forgot the comments regarding these kind of stories on Ars are pretty much just echo chambers and naval gazing.

If ars was an echo chamber you wouldn't be here.

 

[spartan56]

Can their intentions be ANY more out in the open? C'mon USians - make the hurting stop!

What gets me is that there exist sooo many people too blind/dumb to see this and vote for it OR a bunch of people who won't take the time to do a simple thing and vote against it. Apathy certainly contributing to the downfall.

 

[Carewolf]

What happens if the digital currency system goes down? (serious question)

It would still be worthless just like when it was up. It is remarkably resilient that way.

 

[mpfaff]

-1. I forgot the comments regarding these kind of stories on Ars are pretty much just echo chambers and naval gazing.

No one wants to live in libertarian hellworld.

I said it in another thread here, you're welcome to go to any number of developing countries right now and live in libertarian heaven. Low to no taxes, the government will definitely leave you alone. Of course that also means no one is inspecting that food stall you're getting lunch from and sometimes at night there can be bandits on the roads because they're not worried about policing most of the country with what little resources they have. Sometimes they have to shutdown electricity for an entire region for a day or so to do some routine maintenance. But worth it I guess to pay less in taxes and have less people telling other people that they're not allowed to rip you off or poison you.

 

[Ianal]

The folks demanding an Elon Musk ethics probe may as well be demanding a thorough and sincere search for rocking horse shit. The chance of finding either are zero.

 

[flerchin]

I filed a case with the CFPB when the company that acquired my mortgage kept cashing my checks late and assessing a late payment fee on me. I was legitimately afraid of losing my house. Calls and letters were gaslit until I involved the CFPB, and then they refunded my late fees, and started promptly cashing my checks. I see no downside of having them exist, and this sucks.

 

[gsgrego]

-1. I forgot the comments regarding these kind of stories on Ars are pretty much just echo chambers and naval gazing.

Lol.

Say that after you write your own personal thoughts instead of just pasting someone's thoughts and words.

You literally are just an echo.

 

[Daniel]

It's easy to say what Trump means, anytime he uses the phrase "people would come up to me" it means that he's never had a conversation about the subject with any average person. In this case in particular, he's saying that Musk complained that following the laws related to banking is hard and he wants to stop being regulated by the CFPB.

While I agree this definitely didn't happen, I'd say maybe the spin of "but corporations are people!" where it could have. Some bank complains that this held them accountable, oh no, we better get rid of it then!

 

[Koga Onutalepo]

If ars was an echo chamber you wouldn't be here.

Even if that bot were to finally receive its long-deserved ban, Ars still wouldn't be an echo chamber.

 

[Chuckstar]

Serious question: what was the last "innovation" with money that wasn't a grift?

Not crypto, or tax shelters, or creative accounting where you simultaneously reap huge profits while posting huge offsetting losses, an actual no joke innovation.

I send my son rent money with Zelle, that's handy I guess?

Micro-lending in the third world. Got the Nobel Peace Prize, but that was 20 years ago.

Pre-paid debit/credit cards: Can pay the unbanked without them having to pay exorbitant check cashing fees. Can give a teenager a credit card with more control over their spending than under regular credit cards. The basic concept has been around for a while but the flexibility to do some complex things with them has been rolled out over time.

Being able to respond to fraud prevention triggers on a credit card over SMS is huuuge for anyone that travels.

 

[NewCrow]

Since 2017 Sweden has been on a journey to convert the country to a digital e-krona currency. As I understand it, this is different than e-transactions in that the currency is state issued in digital form, and the digital currency can form the basis of exchange. As of 2024 the project has completed it's fourth phase which describes how the currency could launch in practice, following successful technical trials.

Part of what makes this potentially "innovative" is that it could function if other digital transactions systems based on fiat currency go down (like credit cards or banks) and it can wholly replace cash.

But it is not intended to replace the old money. It's supposed to work along side the old money.