In light of the colossal failure of regulators to stop the rampant fraud and incompetence that put us in our economic mess, this busy new administration is applying the Washington solution - proposing a new federal agency to bring some law and order to the wild world of financial products. In his weekly address on June 20, President Obama described the Consumer Financial Protection Agency this way:

It will have the power to set tough new rules so that companies compete by offering innovative products that consumers actually want – and actually understand. Those ridiculous contracts – pages of fine print that no one can figure out – will be a thing of the past. You’ll be able to compare products – with descriptions in plain language – to see what is best for you. The most unfair practices will be banned. The rules will be enforced.

One of the buzzwords of the agency refers to a flavorful tropical bean grown in Mexico and Madagascar. This is how Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner describes it:

This agency will be able to write rules that promote transparency, simplicity and fairness, including defining standards for “plain vanilla” products that have straightforward pricing.

Homeowners nauseated by such confounding confections as the “pick-a-payment” mortgage would probably welcome some vanilla. It’s up to Congress to decide whether to create the CFPA, and Whistleblower will check in to see whether they actually do it.

Now I understand that the administration is busy with weighty issues such as that one. But it has been three months since I first posted my question about the cost of a now-forgotten overseas trip (planted by reader Jay Lunde of Bloomington) on the user-friendly White House contact page. I wanted to test the administration’s commitment to responsiveness and transparency in my own tiny way.

I know they have my email address, because Whistleblower started to get occasional messages from the President, such as this one on May 13:

You are receiving this email because you signed up at WhiteHouse.gov. My staff and I plan to use these messages as a way to directly communicate about important issues and opportunities, and today I have some encouraging updates about health care reform.

Lots of communication, but no answer to my “plain vanilla” question. I’ll keep hoping.

Whistleblower understands that this new administration is busy

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Complaint sagas, Government spends your money, Public records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.