In Weekly Address, President Explains New Consumer Protections

In his weekly YouTube address, President Obama talks about all the new consumer protections and financial regulations he introduced this week, and highlights especially the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  As Obama described it, the new agency is "charged with just one job: looking out for the interests of ordinary Americans in the financial system."

Joe Nocera commented on the new regulations in a column this week, and took a relatively dim view of the President's plans, saying the President doesn't come close to what F.D.R. accomplished as he fought the Great Depression:

Wall Street hated the reforms, of course, but Roosevelt didn’t care. Wall Street and the financial industry had engaged in practices they shouldn’t have, and had helped lead the country into the Great Depression. Those practices had to be stopped. To the president, that’s all that mattered...

Rather, the Obama plan is little more than an attempt to stick some new regulatory fingers into a very leaky financial dam rather than rebuild the dam itself. Without question, the latter would be more difficult, more contentious and probably more expensive. But it would also have more lasting value.

Paul Krugman painted a slightly more generous picture, who says Obama's new regulations close many important loopholes, but don't go far enough.

But don't take my word for it, watch Obama give his address here: