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It is, of course, only a first step. But in Europe we can hardly measure how revolutionary a step is for the United States. On Friday, December 11, not only did the House of Representatives pass the most important financial reform bill since the 1930s - 1,279 pages, no less - but it included the creation of a protection agency for consumers. An agency in charge of regulating and observing financial products aimed at private consumers, from mortgages to credit cards, in order to better counter “predatory practices.”
From Brussels to Paris, this step could seem obvious. But on the banks of the Potomac in Washington, it constitutes a huge innovation, fought against as such by the Wall Street lobby and its partisans in Congress.
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Creating a federal agency in charge of the financial protection of consumers would...mean aligning with Canadian and European standards. “Socialist” standards, in other words, for the most extreme apostles of entrepreneurial freedom. This is the reason Barack Obama was forced to reach out to common sense on Saturday to justify his reform. It is the reason why the battle the president is about to embark upon with the Senate will be one of the hardest of his mandate.
