Smart Banks With Dumb Customers Don’t Exist: Roger Lowenstein

[babsbunny]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a2y1wcOYyFQc


Commentary by Roger Lowenstein

March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been squabbling about whether the new financial consumer-protection agency should be housed within the Federal Reserve or as part of an independent body.

The new watchdog, wherever it goes, is the linchpin of the emerging financial-reform bill, and its premise is that greedy bankers exploiting dumb consumers essentially caused the credit crisis. Stop bankers from selling toxic mortgages and other harmful loans and we won’t have any more meltdowns.