This provocative and accessible narrative recounts the inside story of how a broad-based people's campaign was mobilized and subsequently succeeded in pushing Congress to create a consumer financial regulator with clout.What would Congress do—if anything—to tame Wall Street and the nation's lenders following the financial meltdown of 2008? This book tells the true story of how an alliance of consumer, civil rights, labor, fair lending, and other progressive groups ...

Meltdown reveals how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was able to curb unsafe and unfair practices that led to the 2008 financial crisis. In interviews with key government, industry, and advocacy groups along with deep archival research, Kirsch and Squires show where the CFPB was able to overcome many abusive practices, where it was less able to do so, and why.Open for business in 2011, the CFPB was Congress's response to the financial catastrophe ...