



Dr. Richard Wolff reveals that last week the US Senate actually cancelled a rule that would permit ordinary citizens to join forces against the US banking mafia.





Dr. Wolff reports:





Last week, the US Senate took a remarkable step. It basically voted to overturn a rule that had been passed earlier by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.





In the wake of the biggest banks in America over the last seven or eight years, having literally violated either the legal or the ethical norms of proper banking across the board, having been caught laundering money, having been caught overcharging us for bounced checks for mortgage help, all the rest of it, having faked interest rates to make more money, even though we all have to pay based on those interest rates, having - you name it - they abused the law, they need regulation.





Yet, the US Senate overruled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on a rule governing banks.





The Protection Bureau had issued a rule saying that banks cannot use what are called arbitration clauses. In other words, in your dealings with a bank, if you have a dispute with the bank, what the bank wants to be able to do, is require that this dispute go to arbitration, where you can hire at your expense, your lawyers to make your case, and the big bank, at their expense, can hire their lawyers to fight you.





Why do the banks want that? Because they win. They have big deep pockets. They hire the bank of lawyers. You can't do that, especially with the risk that you'll pay all that money and lose your case too, this is going to dissuade people.





So, the Financial Control Board passed the rule allowing consumers with a complaint, if they can locate others who've suffered the similar problem, they can engage legally in something called a class action. That is, when large numbers of people are grieved over the same issue, can share the cost with lawyers of bringing a case against the banks that have abused them. It's a way to give individuals something like the same clout in a bank in a trial proceeding that the banks have.





The banks didn't like it. They went to work with the Republicans who control the Congress, and with Mr. Trump, and they got the Senate last week to overrule the efforts of the Financial Control Board. In other words, they undid the little bit of regulation of the banks that came out of the disastrous performance of those banks since 2008.





It's extraordinary that a sector as badly behaved as the banks that have had to pay billions in fines for their bad behavior, had the clout with the folks in Washington to not be regulated, even to the little bit that was possible since 2008.



