The economic question: do price caps on overdraft fees benefit low income consumers because they are saved money or are they injured because the cap discourages banks from serving them? Too often politicians or regulators lead the charge against services (such as payday lending) for the low-income consumer arguing that they are over-priced, but the results of their rules are to discourage providing services for the low income consumer.  

There does not seem to be an underlying logic to the amount of fines that FINRA imposes on individuals. This case is not an instance of a broker attempting to steal from a client, nor is there any indication that the clients lost money. The fine amount was $10,000. By contrast, there were two news stories last week that concerned excessive trading by brokers on the accounts of senior citizens. Both were clear instances of theft through brokerage commission, and both involved material…

Governor Cook makes several claims in her Complaint.

Foremost is her allegation that she was dismissed because she has been opposed to reducing interest rates; (i.e., that she is being fired because they disagree on policy, and that the allegation of fraud is simply a pretext.)

As to the question of whether the existence of "independent agencies" is consistent with the Constitution, she does not address the issue directly, but rather argues that of all the independent agencies,…

Over the last several days, FINRA settled a number of enforcement actions against individual brokers who put elderly customers into unsuitable positions or who traded at a level that, considering the costs of commissions, could not do anything but lose substantial money, which many of the trades seem to do even without the commission cost. (See, e.g., ; .)

It is not uncommon for FINRA to impose fines that seem quite substantial against institutions for violations that seem…