Monday, July 13, 2009

Peter Wallison calls Consumer Protection Elitist

He writes:

Traditionally, consumer protection in the United States has focused on disclosure. It has always been assumed that with adequate disclosure all consumers -- of whatever level of sophistication -- could make rational decisions about the products and services they are offered. No more. If the administration's plan is adopted, many consumers will be told that they cannot have particular products or services because they are not sophisticated, educated or perhaps intelligent enough to understand what they have been offered.

Conservatives have always argued that liberals are elitists who do not respect ordinary Americans; this legislation seems to prove it. For example, the administration's plan would allow the educated and sophisticated elites to have access to whatever financial services they want but limit the range of products available to ordinary Americans.

This unprecedented result comes about because, under the proposed legislation, every provider of a financial service (a term that includes organizations as varied as banks, check-cashing services, leasing companies and payment services) is required to offer a "standard" product or service -- to be defined and approved by the proposed agency -- that will be simple and entail "lower risks" for consumers. These standard products are called "plain vanilla" in the white paper that the administration circulated in advance of the legislation.


Such protection is actually not unprecedented. For example, people must be deemed to be "accredited investors" or (for more complicated products) "qualified purchasers" in order to invest in certain types of hedge funds. And stock brokers have an obligation to make sure their clients' investments are "suitable."

But beyond the issue of precedence, there is a broader issue of safety. We reasonably forbid or require a variety of actions in the interest of safety. We require people to wear seatbelts. Be don't allow people to buy certain type of narcotics over the counter. Perhaps Mr. Wallison thinks such protections are a bad idea too, in which case he is consistent, if not also ridiculous. Mortgages can be dangerous products. Let's turn it over to Richard Thaler:

Fast forward to 2008, and the world of mortgage shopping had become a much more complicated place. Borrowers were quoted low initial “teaser” rates that would jump later to some higher level, depending on market interest rates at the time, and there were prepayment penalties for paying off the loans early. For such mortgages, an A.P.R. was no longer an adequate measure of the loan’s cost.

How can we help people make sense of all this?

One extreme approach would be to ban complex mortgages entirely: we could just go back to the world of uniform fixed-rate mortgages. But the cost of simplicity is an end to innovation. Shopping for televisions was easier in the 1970s, when we did not have to decide between plasma and L.C.D. technology — but who wants to go back to those hulking old TV sets?

A better approach is to strive for maintaining diverse options but helping consumers make smart choices and avoid the most common pitfalls.

For mortgages, the specific plan proposed by the administration appears to be strongly influenced by Michael S. Barr, an assistant Treasury secretary. Mr. Barr is a former law professor at the University of Michigan who wrote an important article sketching out these ideas with Sendhil Mullainathan, an economist at Harvard, and Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. As the administration plan describes it, lenders could be required to offer some mortgages they call “plain vanilla,” with uniform terms. There might be one vanilla 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage and one five-year, adjustable-rate mortgage. The features of these plain mortgages would be uniform, much as in a standard lease used in most rental agreements.

Lenders would also be free to offer other exotic mortgages — perhaps called “rocky road” mortgages? — along with the vanilla variety, but these offerings would receive more intense scrutiny from regulators.


I am not sure what is so elitist about this, other than the fact that those who are hostile to regulations tend to like to use elitist as an epithet for their opponents. So I guess I have two questions for Mr. Wallison:

(1) If I gave him an HP12C calculator, assumptions about an interest rate path, and the terms of an option-ARM mortgage, would he be able to tell me the payment on that mortgage in, say, month 62? Perhaps he could, but I don't know too many lawyers (and he is a lawyer) who could do that calculation. If highly education lawyers are generally flummoxed by this calculation, it is hard to see how ordinary Americans could understand it. The point is not to disparage ordinary Americans, but to emphasize a fact--most of us do not have the equipment to make informed judgments about complex financial products.

(2) I am curious how often Mr. Wallison hangs out with those who are not elite. Does he socialize with, say, median income people? With people whose eduction is at the median (i.e., high school graduates?). Perhaps he does, in which case he is entitled to refer to "the elite" as an other. But I have my doubts.

15 comments:

  1. Ms. Mary11:51 AM

    Very good questions, Richard.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "If the administration's plan is adopted, many consumers will be told that they cannot have particular products or services because they are not sophisticated, educated or perhaps intelligent enough to understand what they have been offered."

    How is this different from regulating the distribution of narcotics, or handguns, or alcoholic beverages, or anything else that can pose serious economic and social risks? Or are these policies also elitist?

    ReplyDelete
  3. My brain, my brain!

    "One extreme approach would be to ban complex mortgages entirely: we could just go back to the world of uniform fixed-rate mortgages. But the cost of simplicity is an end to innovation. Shopping for televisions was easier in the 1970s, when we did not have to decide between plasma and L.C.D. technology — but who wants to go back to those hulking old TV sets?"

    This is the quality of thought coming out of the University of Chicago?? It's 3:30 in the morning and I can still see that this is a goofy comparison.

    Let's make it easy for these writers: a) We do not need exotic and innovative financial products. If you think we do, then please figure out why you think so. b) If, after meditation, you still think we need them -- fine, we'll humor you, but let's see how many banks will be serving up fresh hot neg-am ninjas when they are required to hold on to the loan. Yes, when they are required to assume all the risk of that loan.

    Class dismissed.

    (Great Post)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Saying elitist or otherwise might refer to different views of interpreting the given text; what does it imply about?, in what condition to comment and interpret so? and many more. After all, saying that mortgage is remaining problematic is true. From Toronto Home Staging Works

    ReplyDelete
  5. yaa That is quality coming out from the university ......

    Boise real estate

    ReplyDelete
  6. This unprecedented result comes about because, under the proposed legislation, every provider of a financial service (a term that includes organizations as varied as banks, check-cashing services, leasing companies and payment services) is required to offer a "standard" product or service -- to be defined and approved by the proposed agency -- that will be simple and entail "lower risks" for consumers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous8:08 AM

    Consumer protection laws are designed to ensure fair competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional protection for the weak and those unable to take care of themselves.

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    ReplyDelete
  8. "Consumer protection law" or "consumer law" is considered an area of public law that regulates private law relationships between individual consumers and the businesses that sell those goods and services.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Earnestine Jaycox10:35 AM

    Last year at this time we were talking about Kelowna Real Estate. This was a dead market.”

    ReplyDelete
  10. At the state level, many states have a Department of Consumer Affairs devoted to regulating certain industries and protecting consumers who use goods and services from those industries.

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  11. Conservatives have always argued that liberals are elitists who do not respect ordinary Americans; this legislation seems to prove it.

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