Jeb Hensarling Quotes
The bottom line is the best consumer protections are competitive, innovative markets that are transparent. Now, they need to be vigorously policed for force and fraud, but the agencies that do that need to be accountable.
Hensarling, Jeb. Remarks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. House Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, 3 Mar. 2015.
One of the major problems with marijuana was that since it was illegal, the supply was not regulate. One result was that there was no labeling and the consumer had no idea of the strength of the active ingredient (THC) and could not monitor his/her dosage. At the time of this quotation, the state of Colorado had just legalized the selling of marijuana but required that all marijuana sold carry labels which inform the consumer just how much THC he/she would be taking.
Railroads and other large markets shared dominated by a few large corporations.
Referring to the potential effect of legislation requiring environmental disclosure:
At the time of this interview there had been a decade of business fraud at many different levels. The regulatory agencies supposedly responsible for the regulation had neither the staff or the political will to even enforce the laws and regulations then in existence and there were many loopholes in those. Many business interests opposed all regulation and strict enforcement as a diminution of the health of the economy. Others, like Greenspan, saw fraud as corrupting the markets themselves and therefore the usual capitalistic economic competitive forces that would control business do not operate with extensive fraud.
At this time it was 6 years after the Home Financing Crisis and the Meltdown of 2008 and despite tens of thousands of law violations by the bank, the Justice Department was finally finishing their investigations and requiring some penalties. Other negotiations with other banks were in progress, but no bank executives were going to jail for the millions they handled fraudulently, whereas a burglar who stole household goods would do jail time.
Thomas Jeb Hensarling is an American politician who served as the U.S. Representative for Texas's 5th congressional district from 2003 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he chaired the House Republican Conference from 2011 to 2013 and House Financial Services Committee from 2013 until 2019. A leading opponent of regulating the financial industry, Hensarling has close ties to Wall Street, having received campaign donations from every major Wall Street bank as well as various payday lenders.
