Well here's your chance to agree with Donald trump: he made everyone sign an ethics pledge that they would not lobby within 5 years of their tenure in government. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/28/execu... getting Congress to pass a law that puts some teeth behind the promise is another question.
He did! He also weakened the language for what defines the areas in which one is allowed to lobby. Specifically, Trump's lobbying ban only prevents officials from lobbying their former agency - it doesn't prevent them from becoming registered lobbyists. For example, an SEC official couldn't lobby for changes to the SEC, but they could lobby the other 4 financial regulatory agencies. There's also an ongoing legal debate about whether the language used in Trump's lobbying ban includes a loophole that would allow officials to continue to try to engage in certain kinds of lobbying - involving "agency proceedings" rather than legislation.
The previous administration had stronger language (no lobbying whatsoever) and a 1 year ban. So Trump extended the timespan, and poked the ban full of loopholes.
Worse, Trump has issued at least 16 ethics "waivers" to at for staffers who would be banned from serving on his staff over his ethics rules. Once you make more than a dozen or so exceptions for who you're putting on your team, it's not really a rule at all.
Bullshit. Trump is bringing cronyism and opaqueness to heights unprecedented in recent administrations. His lobbying EO actually weakened some of Obama's lobbying restrictions. And while Trump strengthened some rules, he then promptly started handing out secret waivers to so his favorite lobbyists and and industry executives can come work for him. Go read about what the federal government's top ethics officer Walter M. Shaub Jr. had to say about this before he resigned.
Honestly, this isn't hard to see. Just look at EPA, DOE, FERC... Trump is stacking our agencies with industry executives and lobbyists hostile to these agencies' charters, and in some cases their very existence.
Good question. The administration admitted to the existence of these waivers in May, but refused to disclose their contents to the OGE, which is unprecedented among recent administrations. This secrecy was roundly condemned throughout the federal government, and notably and publicly by George W Bush's former chief ethics lawyer [0].
Trump was eventually forced to back down and the waivers were released, revealing such swampy critters as Michael Catanzaro and Shahira Knight [1].
EDIT: So, "secret" in a more colloquial sense than the technical "classified" definition.
Yeah, I read an article that another user posted. I think I prefer the term 'undisclosed.' At least in my head, secret means someone is in trouble for leaking it. There was a paper trail, for example.
I guess the use is valid, but I'm not sure it's objective. I don't prefer Trump, but I do try to remain objective. Try being the operative word.
The norms of what administrations do changes over time in part because what administrations need to do change over time. It's obviously not helpful to contrast George Washington's executive behavior with George Bush's.
In particular, it's useful to draw a line pre- and post-USSR, as that was a sea change in executive policy. That means Bush 1 / Clinton onward. Other common markers are pre/post Great Society, pre/post WW2, pre/post New Deal, etc.
I may have a different definition than they appear to be using. If I'm understanding your link correctly, I'd say they were undisclosed. There would have been a paper trail and the data wasn't classified, correct?
If he were to resign and leak secret information, he'd be in legal trouble, yes?
Note: This is not meant to be read as approval, just a bit of contention at the language used.
I'd say the salient point about secrecy being this:
> But Mr. Trump has chosen to keep the waivers secret. He dropped a practice, in place during the Obama administration, that any waiver would be shared with the Office of Government Ethics and posted on the White House website or the ethics office’s website, or on both.
It certainly wasn't "top secret" in the classified sense but it was done with secrecy as if he had something to hide regarding the practice or, perhaps a more charitable reading was that he was ignorant of the precedent. From hiding the wh visitor logs to the ethics waivers to stopping the recording inside the wh press briefing room in my view they are actively trying to be less transparent in their dealings.
Maybe it is just my perspective but that reads very slanted to me. I was a freelance journalist that covered the political best and hard copy. This was back in my university days, but I'm not sure my editor would have put that through without changing it to something like the mentioned 'undisclosed.'
Secret, as a word, implies intent - at least to me. It may also imply legality. While certainly worthy of raising an eyebrow, I'm not sure we can make accurate claims of intent?
Ah well, it's largely immaterial. I do thank you for taking the time to explain.
> here's your chance to agree with Donald trump: he made everyone sign an ethics pledge that they would not lobby
This seems like a case of "Do as I say, not as I do." Ignoring the question of what percentage of senior people have left due to being fired, the potential for legal cases against them, inability to personally pay for anticipated legal expenses, or some combination thereof, there's also the fact that it's still early in the Trump administration.
The bigger factor is likely the massive number of (former?) lobbyists being hired into positions of influence. In fact, it seems that the lobbying ban you pointed to also removed a lot of restrictions that had been in place [1], and that there's been both noticeable granting of waivers and significant resistance to releasing information on those waivers [2].
> Well here's your chance to agree with Donald trump: he made everyone sign an ethics pledge that they would not lobby within 5 years of their tenure in government. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/28/execu.... getting Congress to pass a law that puts some teeth behind the promise is another question.
You are mistaken if you believe that is a campaign promise he actually kept.
> But he immediately began to staff the administration with people whose work seemed, on its face, to clearly violate the terms of the order. Rather than publicly grant waivers of ethics rules with a clearly stated rationale, the White House was simply routinely waiving ethics rules in secret so nobody knew how many waivers were issued or for what purpose.
> Trump has finally provided documentation, and it shows that the ethics rules are plainly meaningless. He’s granted five times as many waivers in his first four months in office as Obama did, which cover key figures in the administration like Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve Bannon, and counselor Kellyanne Conway. All told, 17 waivers were granted to members of the White House staff, and we still have no idea how many waivers have been granted for other executive branch agencies or whether anyone is even keeping track.
> Trump's ethics pledge, issued as an executive order on Saturday, includes a five-year "lobbying ban" that falls short of its name, preventing officials from lobbying the agency they worked in for five years after they leave, but allowing them to lobby other parts of the government.
From what I have read he is stacking agencies with lobbyists from industries they are supposed to regulate. So no, there is no reason to agree with him.
Holder is not on this letter. And the letter was sent to the CFPB. Holder never worked at CFPB, which has very different jurisdiction than the DOJ. So what exactly are you alleging?
I'll take a wild guess that he is alleging that Eric Holder's failure to prosecute any of the CEOs of the financial institutions that played a critical role in the financial crisis (by, e.g., making loans to people without incomes, packaging the loans into mortgage backed securities, and passing the resulting time bombs off to other parties) was appreciated by his former and future colleagues at Covington and Burling and their clients in the finance industry. That Eric Holder was very aware of that appreciation and anticipated that he would be rewarded for it.
When party A sells party B a crappy product with overinflated promises, the result is a civil suit, not a DOJ criminal prosecution. In any event, what does Equifax have to do with that? Was Equifax rating mortgages or something? Is it a bank?
When the creation and representation of crappy products entails fraud or other crimes the result would actually include criminal prosecutions by the DOJ (in a world where the DOJ weren't captured by party A's industry). Tying the two scandals together is the influence of the finance industry on regulation and enforcement through the revolving door, in both cases to the same law firm representing financial institutions.
Fraud can be either civil or criminal, depending on the circumstances. Where sophisticated parties are on both sides of the transaction, and the allegations of fraud boil down to complex questions regarding representations about the product, it's a civil matter, not a criminal matter. The fact that the DOJ correctly interpreted the law instead of trying to satisfy peoples' bloodlust isn't a "scandal."
I am alleging that this company is expert in hiring people from government agencies who had in some way to do with financial regulation. That's all. You can draw your own conclusions.
oh man even worse this guy used to work in regulation for the government as part of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Such a clear case of "regulatory capture", or the process where former employees of regulatory agencies leave to go reveal all their thinking and decision making tactics to the highest bidder.
To be clear, regulatory capture is when the regulator advances the interests of the industry rather than of the public. Revolving door is a separate issue.
There's an interesting argument that the revolving door actually prevents regulatory capture through encouraging regulators to be more strict. The idea is that the more onerous the regulations, the more desireable it is for corporations to hire former regulators who know the system. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
The revolving door doesn't require regulators to be more strict.
All it needs is for companies to give big rewards (six figure salary for a day a month of work) to regulators who have previously done things the companies like.
Then their replacements will know strengthening regulations is against their personal interests.
You don't hire an ex-regulator for their expertise, you hire them as payment for services already rendered.
The problem with civil servants taking high paid jobs when they leave is that it can be a payoff for being biased for the company. If companies can dangle the carrot of an eventual job the civil servant will avoid actions that sink their chances.
There's a lot of stuff on real revolving doors in the UK in the magazine Private Eye. Stomach turning really.
Nobody is arguing in favor of the revolving door, they're just pointing out how it differs from regulatory capture. Don't argue for the sake of argument.
There's an interesting argument that the revolving door actually prevents regulatory capture through encouraging regulators to be more strict.
So "interesting" now means is "deceptive and ingenuous".
In a hypothetical world where corporations were akin to mom-and-pop bakeries that would need to hire power, sophisticated regulators to guide them through a very tough state, that argument might be plausible.
In the real world where corporations are powerful, forward-looking institutions who know full well that paying people involves a process of rewarding behavior, this argument says more about the person advancing it than anything else.
And sure, a lot of smart people might claim this, just as similar stable of smart people operate in the stable of the corporations writing arguments for newspapers and magazine. But maybe all those people aren't at all tainted in their views. I'm sure they could come up with hypothetical situations where they aren't.
>stable of smart people operate in the stable of the corporations writing arguments for newspapers and magazine
I'm not sure if you're suggesting Matt Levine is "in the stable of corporations", but if you read his article history, he's clearly not. One reason (among many) it's fun to read him, is his incisive criticism of his previous jobs in finance and law.
> former employees of regulatory agencies leave to go reveal all their thinking and decision making tactics to the highest bidder.
This implying thinking and decision making tactics of regulators should be some kind of closely guarded secret? These people are essentially writing the laws that rule our economy, I'd think if anything should be public that's their thinking and decision making tactics.
> Unfortunately, regulations are complicated, vague, and enforced unequally.
All true, they are. But how implying helping somebody to navigate this mess is somehow bad thing? The bad thing is complicated, vague and capriciously enforces law, not people trying to deal with it.
> And yes, sometimes they're even secret, because of fear that if their exact model is publicized, the banks will just optimize around it
This is the opposite of how the law should work. It's like the argument of making the laws and the courts secret because otherwise criminals would know the law and would learn how to avoid being prosecuted, and would also be able to hire lawyers for the same purpose. Yes, they are, and that's how a normal country works. The opposite is how a totalitarian police state works. Sure, it's probably harder to get away with a financial crime in North Korea - but it's also impossible to live a normal life and enjoy freedoms we all have. I'd rather let some crooks slip through now and then than turn the country into North Korea.
Regulatory capture is when regulators later join the people they were regulating This compromises their ability to regulate because they anticipate working that industry later. David Stein used to regulate the financial industry. Now he works in it. That's exactly what regulatory capture is.
I'd say that that's a mechanism of regulatory capture, but not the phenomenon, itself. As Wikipedia puts it:
"Regulatory capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating."
There are many ways this happens without a revolving door.
No,the problem is not that they reveal anything about what they were thinking. That's pretty much public knowledge, and doesn't need protection.
It's that they modify their thinking and their actions while in the regulatory agency in ways that benefit the business interests, in exchange for a cushy job after their time in office.
Or the reverse, that they originate from the businesses and go to the agency to implement the business policies.
Why you call him a "sell-out"? He seems to be professional consultant. His main argument seems to be that CFPB does not have legal right to enforce the regulations he is talking about. That may be true or false - I have no idea, for that one needs to be a lawyer specializing in regulation law and parse the documents establishing CFPB and all accompanying regulations and caselaw. Which is way beyond my abilities, and I suspect, most of people here. But how it is "Orwellian"?
He also raises a very correct argument that considering only benefits of successful class action and not the costs of the litigation and the fallout for both consumers and credit industry is just wrong. I mean, if you win $10 from successful lawsuit but would be forced to pay $20 more next time you need a credit check (numbers are just an invented example, of course), then this setup won't be worth it for you.
Again, his point may be wrong - maybe benefits of class actions are much larger than the costs - but this point is certainly in no way is "Orwellian". And if he is right, avoiding such regulation would definitely be in the public interest, in a very direct sense of the term. We have tons of regulations which serve as nothing more than a feeding ground for unsavory opportunistic plaintiff lawyers, with no benefit for purported victims (which get peanuts while lawyers are getting millions, and often the lawyers just buy plaintiffs for minuscule sums in order to mass-file lawsuits) and huge costs for everybody else. Last thing we need is more of these.
He also raises a very correct argument that considering only benefits of successful class action and not the costs of the litigation and the fallout for both consumers and credit industry is just wrong. I mean, if you win $10 from successful lawsuit but would be forced to pay $20 more next time you need a credit check (numbers are just an invented example, of course), then this setup won't be worth it for you.
This argument confuses a payoff to plaintiffs with costs to the credit bureau's customers - but the plaintiffs would not be the customers of the credit bureau but everyone monitored (involutarily!) by the credit bureau.
Just as much, the purpose of the state allowing a lawsuit would not be to give money to the plaintiffs but rather to give the credit bureau a disincentive for doing what they did - manage their subjects' (now victims) data poorly.
Which is to repeat what other have noted - the average American isn't the credit bureau's customer, they are the credit bureau's product (the customers are employers and landlords). If having a secure credit-check system costs more, let the credit bureau's actual customers pay more.
And sure, landlords sometimes pass credit-check costs on to tenants but that's just one more part of the whole abusive system that it would be nice to see reigned-in (though naturally I'm not optimistic).
> This argument confuses a payoff to plaintiffs with costs to the credit bureau's customers
Most people would be both for a class-action lawsuit, or subclass of one another. The point is these things have costs, and when thinking "great, we just took a billion dollars from a richy rich bank!" you should also think of "wow, the richy rich bank just raised fees and made some produces worse and more costly and decided make less investment, which hurt local economy, how that happened I wonder?"
> Just as much, the purpose of the state allowing a lawsuit
This however allows all lawsuits - not only about poor data management but about somebody getting bad credit score and suing the credit report company, and about a font in the report making somebody nervous, and about some document on the company site being not compliant with some God-forsaken regulation from 1907 which some enterprising lawyer dug up and decided to turn into a nice yacht for himself. These things cost big money, and there are people specializing on making big money from such things, with zero use for the public but raising the costs of doing business (which is inevitably shifted on the end consumer). Regulations should take this into account.
> the average American isn't the credit bureau's customer,
How that is true? I've been asked for credit report when getting a credit card, renting apartment, signing up for phone service, signing up for internet service, signing up for the TV service, buying a car, buying any of the kitchen appliances, getting a mortgage, buying life insurance, buying car insurance... You get the idea. What kind of "average American" does none of these things? It's certainly not an average American I have ever met or heard of.
> And sure, landlords sometimes pass credit-check costs on to tenants but that's just one more part of the whole abusive system
I'm not sure - how this is "abusive system"? Do you expect credit bureaus work for free or landlords not charge the costs of doing business because of pure althruism and hate for money? Landlords don't rent out their property because they want to serve the humanity - they do it for money. And if something like credit check costs them money, they'd include it in the price - and unless there's a cheaper offer on the market, that'd be the price of the offer. What's "abusive" in it?
>How that is true? I've been asked for credit report when getting a credit card, renting apartment, signing up for phone service, signing up for internet service, signing up for the TV service, buying a car, buying any of the kitchen appliances, getting a mortgage, buying life insurance, buying car insurance... You get the idea. What kind of "average American" does none of these things? It's certainly not an average American I have ever met or heard of.
How does that make you a customer? This has uses for the companies you buy things from, but not for you directly. I live in a country with no credit reports (credit is given using other metrics) and in do way do I see this as you being the customer or consumer in this case.
That's something that allows me to access easy credit. If I don't have one (e.g. as a new immigrant I didn't have any credit record) I do not get access to credit, instead I have to prepay stuff, use very expensive credit (12% APR instead of 3% APR, that sort of thing), large security deposits etc. Clearly having credit reports make my life easier (and cheaper). How that's not being a customer?
Because I, and many people worldwide, can do all that without credit reports. If it weren't for the credit agencies banks would find another way to determine what credit to give you without additional costs to you.
So your argument is that because the credit reporting companies may raise prices as a result of being sued for their bad actions we should prohibit anyone from suing them and allow them to operate with out any legal liability.
They should be allowed to create databases of ruin, not secure those databases, sell this data to who ever and no one should have any legal recourse because prices might go up if they were found to be liable...
Really? That is your position
I have a problem with these credit reporting agencies even being legal in the first place. I have a problem with the fact I have almost no control over the data they collect, and sell about me, I have a problem the fact they can sell this data about me to whom ever they wish with out my permission, and I have problem with the fact they charge me to access this data in any meaningful or real time manner, sure they are legally required to give me a report 1 time per year, a regulation they also tried to kill, but if I want meaningful access I have to pay them a monthly fee to access my own data.
So it is safe to say I 100% disagree with your position, these credit reporting agencies should face bankruptcy for breaking the public trust. This data breach should mean Equifax as a company is dissolved, unfortunately due to flawed and unethical arguments like the one you are making this company will likely make a profit off this data breach
> So your argument is that because the credit reporting companies may raise prices as a result of being sued for their bad actions we should prohibit anyone from suing them and allow them to operate with out any legal liability.
Nope. My argument is we need to account for the costs of this when we decide if having arbitration ban is a good thing or not. It's not "evil fatcats want no responsibility for their greed, let's stop them!", it's "we have two setups here, with complex cost structure, before we decide which one we are going with, we need to carefully weigh the costs of each, not dismissing any of them because it makes us feel bad and not using unicorn-land economics that says everything that makes one feel bad doesn't really exist". My point is not one is better than the other - I didn't do the work to know that - my point is you have to do the work to know it. Wishing well is not enough, unlike fairy tales, in the economics it's not enough to be pure of heart, you also have to have math and data on your side.
> Really? That is your position
No, not really, you can stop strawmanning now, before you caused local straw shortage and the costs of straw skyrocket.
> but if I want meaningful access I have to pay them a monthly fee to access my own data.
I know right now about half-dozen of absolutely free ways of getting credit reports and scores. I didn't look for them that hard, I was told about them by companies' marketing, banners, mails (both paper and electronic), etc. Discover, American Express, Barclay, CreditKarma, Mint, Citi. Everybody is doing it now. I am sure if I look harder, I can find even more free offers. Surely, the paid ones could have slightly better UI and maybe a couple of added-value services like insurance and notifications and stuff, but bare access to data has been free for a while, if you spend 10 minutes on research.
> This data breach should mean Equifax as a company is dissolved,
So instead of 3-way oligopoly you have 2-way oligopoly. That surely will fix things.
There is no behavior that can guarantee business is not going to be sued. People sue for all kinds of completely frivolous reasons, and it still can cost lots of money to deal with it.
>>>David Stein advises clients on retail financial services, credit reporting, financial privacy, payments, fair lending, and technology and e-commerce issues. He assists banks, non-bank lenders, consumer reporting agencies, payments and technology companies, and their vendors with regulatory, compliance, supervision, enforcement, and transactional matters.
Notice hw he in no manner of speak "assists" any of the consumers/users of said services?
The sell-out that wrote that letter btw is this guy:
I don't think it's a good idea to post someone's personal information in such a flippant way. He's not a public official and the whole point here is to witch hunt him. It comes up with his name, phone number and email address.
He's a lobbyist. Every interaction he has with the government is a matter of public record. If he felt he didn't want that information public then he shouldn't be a lobbyist.
Posting the document is fine. Posting a link to his contact page while calling him a sellout is probably overstepping. The sole reason for posting the second link is to say "Look at this person. Isn't he horrible? Here's his name, phone number and email address."
HN is almost a top-500 website by traffic. A lot of people come here. How likely is it that people here will start harassing him just because it's easy? His info is right there.
If posting the document is fine - which you didn't read - then posting a link to his corporate bio is fine. It is in the effing document. It is already public record.
I'm well aware. There's a major distinction between someone's info being in a document vs linking to his info with "This guy is a sellout:"
This post is currently #1 on HN. The comment is the top comment. That means all of HN's traffic that reads comments is going to that person's contact info.
If you don't agree, just downvote and move on. Personal swipes are unnecessary.
I have to admit, this is some top-level concern trolling.
Judging by his public record, the guy is a sellout, and it is 100% OK to call him out as such. If he didn't want his contact info to be public, he should not have put it online. Since he did, it is, again, 100% OK for people to link to it. That's the entire friggin purpose of a contact page!
The parent didn't call you a concern troll, though. They said "this is some top-level concern trolling". Criticizing behaviour is not the same thing as name calling or personal swipes.
No one is calling his house, contacting his spouse or kids. His work email, phone number, and address are publicly accessible. This goes with the territory of being a lobbyist.
Doxxing is a toxic problem on the internet. However this is not really his "personal" information. It's his professional contact information, which he publishes freely, and uses to attempt to persuade government officials. Contacting him professionally and non-aggressively is a perfectly fine thing to do.
Whatever information is at that public link is info posted by the guy or his employer. It's not doxxing him. It's merely linking to a public webpage that the person themselves approved.
You can read Equifax's original letter in all of its Orwellian double-speak: https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=CFPB-...
It's absolutely shocking to me how many times they use the words "serve the public interest".
The sell-out that wrote that letter btw is this guy: https://www.cov.com/en/professionals/s/david-stein