6 Feb 2018 3:21 pm
He's not draining the swamp, he's filling it with loan sharks.Gone is Richard Cordray, the consumer bureau’s director and so-called bad cop, who levied fines and brought lawsuits to crack down on usurious business practices by an industry that offers short-term, high-interest loans that critics say trap vulnerable consumers in a feedback loop of debt.
In his place is Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director and a former South Carolina congressman, who was chosen by President Trump to assume temporary control of the bureau and has emerged as something of a white knight for the payday lending industry.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Mulvaney put the brakes on a contentious rule, ushered in by Mr. Cordray, that was set to impose tight restrictions on short-term payday loans.
He ended a case that the bureau initiated last year against a group of payday lenders in Kansas accused of charging interest rates of nearly 1,000 percent.
Last week, Mr. Mulvaney scrapped an investigation into the marketing and lending practices of World Acceptance Corporation, a lender based in South Carolina that donated $4,500 to Mr. Mulvaney’s previous congressional campaigns through its political action committee.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/p ... tions.html