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Bearing witness the new york editor and prizewinner with the true story of the deep state in production with our friends at the farmland trust on climate change, Clifford Thompson on race and family as well as frank, welcome, helen [inaudible] video or podcas podcast forms ie Digital Media library so in short you can look around on the home page. With the support of the sponsors specific to town hall townhall e Network Foundation and northwest but as most of you know they make this possible and i want to thank all of the members watching tonight we have nearly 6,000 members and i dont know how many are actually watching tonight. Meanwhile, everything you heard is true. The Nonprofit Community at large are facing significant financial strain right now along with other sectors and we hope that you will consider during this difficult time making a donation at the bottom of the screen or by becoming a member and you can also make a donation online or by texting town hall and that will open up the page as well. If youre intereste you are intn supporting local independent bookstores you can purchase a book using the link on the lifestream page. Its worked backwards in time and i didnt really take the time to change that, so working backward, mr. Cordray previously the democratic nominee and before that served as the first director of the Consumer Protection bureau from 2012 to 2017. Prior to that, he served variously as ohios attorney general, solicitor general and treasure. In 2008 he received a Financial Service award from the u. S. Small Business Administration and the government Service Award for america. Earlier in his career, he was an adjunct professor at Ohio State University college of law and served as a representative for the 33rd ohio house distric houd first solicitor general in the states history. Earlier still, he was the editorinchief of the law review before clerking for the Supreme Court justice and anthony kennedy. The watchdog for protecting consumers and their families, economy and democracy is the subject of tonights timely talk. Please join me in welcoming richard cordray. Thank you for making this format available during these challenging times. Watchdog is a story that is timely to the Society Today and to the Economy Today and as we move away to another financial crisis we need to brace ourselves. The book is about consumers. They are all of us, every one of us that goes to the financial marketplace and makes decisions and choices and its all of those decisions that we make every day the economy and the United States of america is the most powerful and most affluent economy the world has ever seen as the activity is generated. When i started the book i wanted to start with a story about the average consumer, that is you and me and the people we know, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. Most people understand consumers often face challenging situations and sometimes get into problems that are not of their own making. Some of them are but there are many situations where people are misled or cheated or mistreated in the financial marketplace, and i start with a variety of those. Talking about people that are using products that we all use like credit cards and auto loans, like mortgages to buy a house. For their children or grandchildren. They often find when they are dealing with Financial Companies they get the runaround and often cant get satisfaction, and that is alienating and it creates a sense that we all know those feelings of being on hold for long periods of time and being told nothing can be done about that and its often in the fine print. For that is the nature of consumers. Its important to realize we are not alone in facing the challenges. Sometimes you may feel we are alone were the only one to whom this happened. Im going to raise them at this point. We had a technical difficulty for a moment if i may be repeating myself slightly. One thing to remember is they dramatically changed in the last two generations. There was very little credit available and it wasnt a big part of their lives. They couldnt get into the amount of trouble but in Todays Society fast forward for two generations, credit card spending is pretty ubiquitous among americans and auto loans are a part where people drive to work. Mortgages are the way in which its a significant obligation and Student Loans are now a prevalent part of life for many families. They have the opportunity credit provided they face a lot more risk and can get into more trouble to get a bigger piece of our lives. This brings us to the financial crisis, 2008 which was caused by widespread irresponsible and predatory mortgage lending. It caused many families to lose their homes during the crisis and attended the entire economy. That led to congressional reform to try to prevent a crisis like that from happening again. Its a straightforward analogy that was a winning argument for many was we got to the point in america where it was basically impossible to sell someone a toaster. Theres a 20 chance of bursting into flames and burning down their house. But to sell them a mortgage they had the chance of putting them into foreclosure and held o oute streets with their families that we were not providing protection for Financial Products with a huge oversight. And the financial regulatory system in washington thats really focused on the big banks and Financial Companies themselves. It was about keeping them safe and sound and about making sure that they prospered over time. Test. But it is about Consumer Finance and how it has changed. So as Consumer Finance has expanded in society so has the position of the financial secto sector. Financial services is a much bigger part of our economy and doubled in size to see 40000 per person in Consumer Debt today. That means of Financial Services industry has grown in importance especially in washington more money spent on lobbying and Campaign Contributions than by any other part of the economy if you have a new agency not like the Consumer Protection bureau who is to make sure it oversees the Financial Companies and holds them accountable that there are one theres bound to be significant push back to tell the political story in the book the fight that preceded and then that secondary fight the first director of the bureau and the first nominee i was blocked from being confirmed for two full years while in battle to weekend the agency and then i come back to that fight later in the book when i talk about what it is like to serve almost a full year under the Trump Administration to push forward the agency to hold them accountable for their misdeeds. The new Trump Administration had a mindset to talk about the battles back and forth to have them fired or to be intimidated and then to rebalance the marketplace. And to play a bigger role in the economy. Here is a story from the book about a young servicemember and his father. He went into the service and into basic training and was leaving home for the first time it on his own for the first time. And those financial creditors know it and realize these are unsophisticated experienced consumers but with a guaranteed paycheck from the us government. The predatory Financial Services congregate around the country and has been described next to the stream when the salmon are coming upstream to spawn. They try to sell servicemembers high cost loans and products especially electronics. Like many young people on their own for the first time in making money wanted to buy his first set of wheels so found a lender that looked legitimate. Which is a military installment loan and educational services. When he walked out of the lender, he bought a used dodge ram truck. It cost him 70 percent of the takehome income and some of that was undisclosed payments or addon products that was worthless and folded into the price, he didnt understand tha that. But that is what he was saddled with and for years to come most of the takehome pay would pay for the truck. When he was deployed to go overseas he turned his finances over to his father and explained his situation and his father was outraged and tried to undo it. But when he tried to work with the lender, he was asked didnt he sign the paperwork . Then case close thats the end of the story and so they thought so they thought they were stuck but his father didnt let it rest he complained to everybody and eventually he found his way to a newfangled agency to the Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau and filed a complaint with the bureau. We investigated and found the undisclosed fees and the addon products where the marketing and we brought the enforcement action and we found the Lending Program and that the same thing had happened to 50000 other servicemembers. We brought the enforcement action and recovered millions of dollars back for the consumers that were harmed by that. And revise the terms of their contract so we fixed the contracts and so holding these lenders to account but then went one step further this is only something that government can do to understand the pattern of the problem and how to fix it. But he was told he had to have the loan repaid out of the militarys salary Allotment Program that means a lender got the money before it ever went to his account and lost control of his own budget and could not prioritize another payment if he preferred. This had to be paid out first this program was created years ago as a convenience for Service Members deployed overseas this was before Online Banking and typically free at most institutions. Debt collectors using that system is a onesided collection tool to require servicemembers to sign up to have it paid to the Allotment Program and didnt realize that was an option that was the fine print so they created a task force to work with us and they reformed the Allotment Program to make it illegal to use that for high Cost Electronics and auto purchases for servicemembers. That is the story indicative of what the bureau can do but to provide the muscle to have the insight and analyze markets it was thousands of others that were affected and there was a broader systemic problem to be fixed but i pointed the book watchdog the Consumer Bureau is emblematic of what we can do with government when it doesnt focus only on those with clout and those on the top of the pyramid and to understand the problems of the average American Household we can put americans and consumers first and see to it they get a fair shake that something we need to do in Society Today and how democracy works and thats a sample of how protecting consumers can save not only families like ari but the backbone of the economy in the marketplace, but also democracy to give people to understand that government can do something for them and make it better for them. And those teams that we could use across the entire governmen government. So i will take a break there and just pause and open this up to questions and answers. You can talk about anything you like including how the Current Crisis affects consumers or anything from the book that we said tonight. Have that it. There we are waiting to come online for questions and answer answers. Our first question comes from kevin is there way to change the perception of financial protection is a zerosum battle for consumers to win businesses must lose . Yes i talk about this in my book. The reality is when ukraine evenhanded oversight as a whole and protection for consumers somebody else creates a big advantage lawabiding businesses trying to do the right thing by their customers often have to compete against other businesses that are willing to cut corners and violate the law. What happens when you are a Better Business trying to do the right thing and suddenly someone has the advantage by breaking the law . Who either break the law with them to level the Playing Field or you lose market share. That happened a lot with the runup to the financial crisis there were responsible mortgage lenders losing out to irresponsible predatory lenders to mislead customers about a teaser rate and if it would remain over the life of the loan for other products to sell higher cost mortgages and the borrower deserved. And yet the traditional lenders were losing market share. And better oversight of the market better law and order actually serves the businesses who dont have to compete against those who take the low road. And coming out of the financial crisis we need to restore confidence about what they were doing and if they would get a fair shake in the people dont have that confidence and they wont participate one example is remittance transfers people sending money overseas to loved ones or family members that people dont have confidence in the market if they dont think the error would be corrected or dispute dissolved on resolved so then they will pack money and the suitcases and create a black market but if you create confidence and a sensible set of rules to be enforced it is better for the market as a whole not only for consumers but businesses that serve a Strong Customer service. I will stick with another question do you have cancer in the high Interest Rate charged by collection agencies permitted under state law are 12 percent with the prevailing rates are so low. I do think those are abusive rates it has to do with the sluggishness of legal changes in society. They should be key directly to the going market rate. 12 percent is the vestige of the time when Interest Rates are higher and it was an unfair rate in a situation where the average market based bank account pays zero. 05 percent. That is the unfortunate aspect of the law to be more nimble and kept up to date and that is wrong. By the way that Interest Rate which is high pales in comparison to get a payday loan or the online loan for those that charge triple digit Interest Rates and the fight we take on with the payday lending industry that led to a rule that we adopted two payday lending around the country by requiring them to make a reasonable assessment of people could repay the loan before making the loan they continue to fight that under the current leadership is trying to undo the rule which is the unfortunate direction and i hope people will speak out against that but that will be fought in court for some time one third of the states have no payday lending two thirds do at high rates and all states there are online loans that find their way into the state sometimes illegally the trap people into cycles of debt that are destructive. If anybody knows the story of Washington State better correct me or add some detail but washington had its own run with payday lending just a few years ago there was a big push to regulate the industry. I remember being baffled by a handful of legislators fighting so hard for an industry that seems so transparently aligned with the constituents and in a handful of cases some had otherwise pretty strong track record of service to the underdog for a better way to put it. How has payday lending been able to develop around the country and hold on it has managed to hold on . Its a phenomenon around the country. The first is there are a lot of legislators supported by the payday lending industry and they have been very effective at throwing money around in the corridors of the legislatures and state capitals around the country. Another part is there is an argument that having this kind of credit available is somehow helpful to people i dont personally agree with that argument and we did an analysis of millions of payday loans they repeatedly trapped people into a cycle of debt thought he could repay it and then he couldnt then to renew the loan every two weeks and then paid more and that happens to people all the time. So they make this argument with a straight face access to credit is a good thing even if it is terrible credit but it is such a high price with conditions but it ruins people financially. Thats the problem i had with it the evidence showed that for a lot of borrowers. Is there anything cfpb can reduce the Interest Rates charged on <