7 ms·

> this seems pretty hard to argue against! Removing consumer protection would be something hard to argue against too, but yet, here we are: https://news.bloom

> this seems pretty hard to argue against! Removing consumer protection would be something hard to argue against too, but yet, here we are: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/bessent-pauses-cfpb-litigation-new-rules-as-he-takes-the-reins https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/bessent-pauses-cfp... "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has shut down a wide variety of operations inside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in his new role as acting director." Nothing of this makes sense in that all these actions don't seem to make life easier or better for citizens in particular or the world in general.

Sharlin 2y ago
Everything about it makes perfect sense because pesky things like consumer protection and occupational safety cut into the profits of the owning class.
- test6554 2y ago
  I guess I'll just have to become a shareholder
  - callc 2y ago
    Too late the 0.1% took all the cookies and didn’t learn how to share as children
    - exe34 2y ago
      I'm just going to buy cake at this point.
- mlinhares 2y ago
  Looks like we'll have leaded gas back in pumps pretty soon.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    The target to replace lead water pipes was abandoned by Trump yesterday.
    - consp 2y ago
      Got to keep people mad and dumb I guess.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > target to replace lead water pipes was abandoned by Trump yesterday Source? I'm only finding a Guardian article about Congressional Republicans planning a CRA action [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/republicans-lead-exposure-rules https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/republicans-...
  - rayiner 2y ago
    Slippery slope fallacy. And bad politics. Reflexively defending State department ops to destabilize foreign countries through a putative foreign aid organization by hand having about leaded gas (in the context of a guy who restarted the EV industry) is how you get to this point in history.
munificent 2y ago
[flagged]
- ineedaj0b 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    Dude, the media is owned by billionaires, and bent over backwards to excuse a Nazi salute. They're on the same side
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago
  >The goal of Trump, Musk and co. is to make life better for the rich. I mean that feels right. But, they have more money than they can spend. They can make their lives better by stopping being so greedy... it's not about better. It's greed. It's the number on their total net worth, or some other bullshit number. It's exactly like Musk paying others to play games to get him the best apparent player character. He pays others to earn money to make him look, to himself, like the best fascist-capitalist oligarch, or whatever he's going for. In reality, their lust for boosting some vanity metric is most closely aligned with "make life worse for the poor". Because whilst they do pay some top employees well, the whole pyramid sits on the exploitation of many millions more poor people who, through their greed, the capitalists push down further into the bloody, stinking, fetid soup below. Oh, and the capitalists rape the planet too... just to make sure no lining thing escapes the accretion zone of their self-destructive insecurity.
blindriver 2y ago
CFPB was responsible for trying to fine creative ways to control other companies, and by debanking others. This was Elizabeth Warren’s doing and a complete farce. As Zuckerberg said, Meta was brought in front of the CFPB by Warren and he was confused because Meta isn’t a bank.
- hypothesis 2y ago
  Was it before or after he tried to pull off that Libra thing?
  - pavlov 2y ago
    I worked at Facebook when the Libra thing happened, and it was obviously meant to be a global bank that evades banking regulations by sprinkling crypto magic. When it launched, employees were told that we'd soon be able to receive a portion of our salaries in Libra. Every practical feature of the system was effectively a Facebook bank account where the unit of currency was tied to a basket of major currencies. The rest was smoke and mirrors. So yeah, Zuck feigning surprise about being dragged in front of CFPB was just an act (like most of what he does in public).
    - oblio 2y ago
      > When it launched, employees were told that we'd soon be able to receive a portion of our salaries in Libra. LOL, crypto-company scrip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip) coupled with a touch of pump (and possibly dump).
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  I'll have to look into that. But giving these people any good faith is quite charitable to say the least.
- turtlesdown11 2y ago
  > CFPB Warns that Digital Marketing Providers Must Comply with Federal Consumer Finance Protections > Tech firms that use behavioral targeting of individual consumers regarding financial products are liable for violations Oh, ok.
altacc 2y ago
A significant part of the animosity towards the EU and Trump's threat of tariffs is its consumer protection and preventing US companies, especially US tech companies, from doing whatever the hell they want. A major difference between the US and EU is what the TikTok nonsense proved: the US is happy for a US company, aligned to Trump's authority, to track, influence and commodify its users at will; whereas the EU doesn't want any company to have that power regardless of location.
- _blk 2y ago
  ...Seems more like the EU reserves that power to itself, which I'd argue is even worse
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Every national government tracks people, including the USA, so Americans get the worst of both worlds.
  - tcptomato 2y ago
    Why would it be worse?
- ban-evader 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    The error is viewing the EU has a single entity with only one viewpoint on any subject. Europol + most major euro police forces + a number of european deputees want to have access to backdoors to spy on citizens, other european deputees do not. The battle is here.
- hnbad 2y ago
  While this is true in principle, it's worth adding the caveat that EU countries have also been pushing for backdoors to encrypted communications in order to expand law enforcement access. Of course while this contradicts the stance on privacy the EU put forward with the GDPR (which sneakily redefined the right to privacy and control of your personal data as an indelible human right btw). But in case anyone thinks this is a dunk on the EU: this is still not as invasive as the US law enforcement's powers of warrantless surveillance which have repeatedly blown up the EU-US frameworks for data sharing (Privacy Shield and its other iterations, which Mr Schrems seems to have personally made a sport of shooting down faster than they get implemented). It's also not entirely contradictory as the focus here is on protecting the rights of people against corporations while still providing means for the state to violate those rights when necessary (similarly to how the state can violate your right to free movement through incarceration or your right to bodily autonomy by shooting you, neither of which seem to upset the people who'd think this one is a gotcha). Considering the EU's main function is being a transnational economic region (if you ignore all the fluff about shared values and history and instead follow the definition of "a system's function is what it does"), it's absolutely true that the EU is remarkably restrictive on what corporations can do compared to the US - even before Trump. EDIT: The two sibling comments prove my point: while EU member states have been pushing for legislation like providing backdoors to encrypted communication, this is neither unique to the EU nor a contradiction and the US already has far wider reaching measures in place. Consider for example the Switzerland-based CIA and BND (Germany) shell company that distributed backdoored encryption to hostile nations which Germany backed out of when the CIA defended distributing the same technology to friendlies without informing them or their intelligence agencies. Or literally any of the Snowden leaks, which described not only mass surveillance of US citizens but also espionage against US allies (infamously including wiretapping then-chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone) to a degree none of the EU member states have ever done anything comparable to - and which those mostly didn't act on because of the importance of maintaining good terms with the US. Or the post-9/11 legislation which not only allowed warrantless surveillance with gag orders (which is why "canaries" became popular in cryptography communities) but even literally killing or abducting and indefinitely incarcerating US citizens without a trial - not to mention torture. You can criticize the EU for state overreach. You can't do so by using the US for grounds of moral superiority - not even moral equivalence. You can argue about different attitudes to free speech, gun ownership or the right to self-defense (e.g. castle doctrine), sure. All of these are valid grounds for debate. But the US government can (according to its own jurisdiction) legally do so many more things to both its own citizens and non-citizens both within and outside its borders that trying to use it for a libertarian "win" against the EU seems farcical at best.

Sharlin 2y ago

Everything about it makes perfect sense because pesky things like consumer protection and occupational safety cut into the profits of the owning class.

test6554 2y ago
I guess I'll just have to become a shareholder
- callc 2y ago
  Too late the 0.1% took all the cookies and didn’t learn how to share as children
  - exe34 2y ago
    I'm just going to buy cake at this point.
mlinhares 2y ago
Looks like we'll have leaded gas back in pumps pretty soon.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  The target to replace lead water pipes was abandoned by Trump yesterday.
  - consp 2y ago
    Got to keep people mad and dumb I guess.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > target to replace lead water pipes was abandoned by Trump yesterday Source? I'm only finding a Guardian article about Congressional Republicans planning a CRA action [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/republicans-lead-exposure-rules https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/republicans-...
- rayiner 2y ago
  Slippery slope fallacy. And bad politics. Reflexively defending State department ops to destabilize foreign countries through a putative foreign aid organization by hand having about leaded gas (in the context of a guy who restarted the EV industry) is how you get to this point in history.

munificent 2y ago

[flagged]

ineedaj0b 2y ago
[flagged]
- spencerflem 2y ago
  Dude, the media is owned by billionaires, and bent over backwards to excuse a Nazi salute. They're on the same side
pbhjpbhj 2y ago
>The goal of Trump, Musk and co. is to make life better for the rich. I mean that feels right. But, they have more money than they can spend. They can make their lives better by stopping being so greedy... it's not about better. It's greed. It's the number on their total net worth, or some other bullshit number. It's exactly like Musk paying others to play games to get him the best apparent player character. He pays others to earn money to make him look, to himself, like the best fascist-capitalist oligarch, or whatever he's going for. In reality, their lust for boosting some vanity metric is most closely aligned with "make life worse for the poor". Because whilst they do pay some top employees well, the whole pyramid sits on the exploitation of many millions more poor people who, through their greed, the capitalists push down further into the bloody, stinking, fetid soup below. Oh, and the capitalists rape the planet too... just to make sure no lining thing escapes the accretion zone of their self-destructive insecurity.

blindriver 2y ago

CFPB was responsible for trying to fine creative ways to control other companies, and by debanking others. This was Elizabeth Warren’s doing and a complete farce. As Zuckerberg said, Meta was brought in front of the CFPB by Warren and he was confused because Meta isn’t a bank.

hypothesis 2y ago
Was it before or after he tried to pull off that Libra thing?
- pavlov 2y ago
  I worked at Facebook when the Libra thing happened, and it was obviously meant to be a global bank that evades banking regulations by sprinkling crypto magic. When it launched, employees were told that we'd soon be able to receive a portion of our salaries in Libra. Every practical feature of the system was effectively a Facebook bank account where the unit of currency was tied to a basket of major currencies. The rest was smoke and mirrors. So yeah, Zuck feigning surprise about being dragged in front of CFPB was just an act (like most of what he does in public).
  - oblio 2y ago
    > When it launched, employees were told that we'd soon be able to receive a portion of our salaries in Libra. LOL, crypto-company scrip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip) coupled with a touch of pump (and possibly dump).
unethical_ban 2y ago
I'll have to look into that. But giving these people any good faith is quite charitable to say the least.
turtlesdown11 2y ago
> CFPB Warns that Digital Marketing Providers Must Comply with Federal Consumer Finance Protections > Tech firms that use behavioral targeting of individual consumers regarding financial products are liable for violations Oh, ok.

altacc 2y ago

A significant part of the animosity towards the EU and Trump's threat of tariffs is its consumer protection and preventing US companies, especially US tech companies, from doing whatever the hell they want. A major difference between the US and EU is what the TikTok nonsense proved: the US is happy for a US company, aligned to Trump's authority, to track, influence and commodify its users at will; whereas the EU doesn't want any company to have that power regardless of location.

_blk 2y ago
...Seems more like the EU reserves that power to itself, which I'd argue is even worse
- ben_w 2y ago
  Every national government tracks people, including the USA, so Americans get the worst of both worlds.
- tcptomato 2y ago
  Why would it be worse?
ban-evader 2y ago
[flagged]
- prmoustache 2y ago
  The error is viewing the EU has a single entity with only one viewpoint on any subject. Europol + most major euro police forces + a number of european deputees want to have access to backdoors to spy on citizens, other european deputees do not. The battle is here.
hnbad 2y ago
While this is true in principle, it's worth adding the caveat that EU countries have also been pushing for backdoors to encrypted communications in order to expand law enforcement access. Of course while this contradicts the stance on privacy the EU put forward with the GDPR (which sneakily redefined the right to privacy and control of your personal data as an indelible human right btw). But in case anyone thinks this is a dunk on the EU: this is still not as invasive as the US law enforcement's powers of warrantless surveillance which have repeatedly blown up the EU-US frameworks for data sharing (Privacy Shield and its other iterations, which Mr Schrems seems to have personally made a sport of shooting down faster than they get implemented). It's also not entirely contradictory as the focus here is on protecting the rights of people against corporations while still providing means for the state to violate those rights when necessary (similarly to how the state can violate your right to free movement through incarceration or your right to bodily autonomy by shooting you, neither of which seem to upset the people who'd think this one is a gotcha). Considering the EU's main function is being a transnational economic region (if you ignore all the fluff about shared values and history and instead follow the definition of "a system's function is what it does"), it's absolutely true that the EU is remarkably restrictive on what corporations can do compared to the US - even before Trump. EDIT: The two sibling comments prove my point: while EU member states have been pushing for legislation like providing backdoors to encrypted communication, this is neither unique to the EU nor a contradiction and the US already has far wider reaching measures in place. Consider for example the Switzerland-based CIA and BND (Germany) shell company that distributed backdoored encryption to hostile nations which Germany backed out of when the CIA defended distributing the same technology to friendlies without informing them or their intelligence agencies. Or literally any of the Snowden leaks, which described not only mass surveillance of US citizens but also espionage against US allies (infamously including wiretapping then-chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone) to a degree none of the EU member states have ever done anything comparable to - and which those mostly didn't act on because of the importance of maintaining good terms with the US. Or the post-9/11 legislation which not only allowed warrantless surveillance with gag orders (which is why "canaries" became popular in cryptography communities) but even literally killing or abducting and indefinitely incarcerating US citizens without a trial - not to mention torture. You can criticize the EU for state overreach. You can't do so by using the US for grounds of moral superiority - not even moral equivalence. You can argue about different attitudes to free speech, gun ownership or the right to self-defense (e.g. castle doctrine), sure. All of these are valid grounds for debate. But the US government can (according to its own jurisdiction) legally do so many more things to both its own citizens and non-citizens both within and outside its borders that trying to use it for a libertarian "win" against the EU seems farcical at best.