Meltdown: The Financial Crisis, Consumer Protection, and the Road Forward

Meltdown reveals how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was able to curb important unsafe and unfair practices that led to the recent 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.

• Presents the first comprehensive examination of the CFPB that identifies its successes during its first five years of operation and addresses the challenges the bureau now faces

• Exposes the alarming possibility that as the economy recovers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's efforts to protect consumers could be derailed by political and industry pressure

• Offers provisional assessment of the effectiveness of the CFPB and consumer protection regulation

• Gives readers unique access to insightful perspectives via on-the-record interviews with a cross-section of stakeholders, ranging from Richard Cordray (director of the CFPB) to public policy leaders, congressional staffers, advocates, scholars, and members of the press

• Documents the historical and analytic narrative with more than 40 pages of end notes that will assist scholars, students, and practitioners