YCLOAK

The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau resigned Friday and named his own successor, leading to an open conflict with President Donald Trump, who announced a different person as acting head of the agency later in the day.

That means there are now effectively two acting directors of the CFPB, when there should only be one.

Typically an acting director position would be filled according to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. But Richard Cordray, along with his resignation, elevated Leandra English, who was the agency’s chief of staff, into the deputy director position.

Under the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, English would become acting director. Cordray, an Obama appointee, specifically cited the law when he moved English, a longtime CFPB employee and ally of his, into that position.

​Trump appoints CFPB critic

Within a few hours, President Donald Trump announced his own acting director of the agency, Mick Mulvaney, who is currently director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mulvaney had widely been expected to be Trump’s temporary pick for the bureau until a permanent one could be found.

Mulvaney is a long-time critic of the CFPB, and has wanted the agency’s authority significantly curtailed. So the difference between English and Mulvaney running the agency would be significant.

Senate confirmation needed

The person nominated to be director of the CFPB requires confirmation by the Senate, and it could be many weeks or months before the person would be able to step into the role permanently. Cordray’s move was aimed at allowing his favored successor to keep running the agency for as long as possible before a Trump appointee is confirmed by the Senate.

Cordray had announced earlier this month that he would resign by the end of this month. There is wide speculation that Cordray, a Democrat, is resigning in order to run for governor in his home state of Ohio.

What CFPB does

The CFPB was created as part of the laws passed following the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The agency was given a broad mandate to be a watchdog for consumers when they deal with banks and credit card, student loan and mortgage companies, as well as debt collectors and payday lenders. Nearly every American who deals with banks or a credit card company or has a mortgage has been affected by new rules the agency put in place.

Cordray used that mandate aggressively as its first director, which often made him a target for the banking industry’s Washington lobbyists and congressional Republicans who believed Cordray was overreaching in his role, calling the CFPB a “rogue agency.”

As director, he also was able to extract billions of dollars in settlements from banks, debt collectors and other financial services companies for wrongdoing. When Wells Fargo was found to have opened millions of phony accounts for its customers, the CFPB fined the bank $100 million, the agency’s largest penalty to date.
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Overhauling welfare was one of the defining goals of Bill Clinton’s presidency, starting with a campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it,” continuing with a bitter policy fight and producing change that remains hotly debated 20 years later.

Now, President Donald Trump wants to put his stamp on the welfare system, apparently in favor of a more restrictive policy. He says “people are taking advantage of the system.”

Trump, who has been signaling interest in the issue for some time, said this past week that he wants to tackle the issue after the tax overhaul he is seeking by the end of the year. He said changes were “desperately needed in our country” and that his administration would soon offer plans.

​Work on new policy begins

For now, the president has not offered details. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said more specifics were likely early next year. But the groundwork has begun at the White House and Trump has made his interest known to Republican lawmakers.

Paul Winfree, director of budget policy and deputy director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, told a recent gathering at the conservative Heritage Foundation that he and another staffer had been charged with “working on a major welfare reform proposal.” He said they have drafted an executive order on the topic that would outline administration principles and direct agencies to come up with recommendations.

“The president really wants to lead on this,” Winfree said. “He has delivered that message loud and clear to us. We’ve opened conversations with leadership in Congress to let them know that that is the direction we are heading.”

Trump said in October that welfare was “becoming a very, very big subject, and people are taking advantage of the system.”

​Clinton’s campaign promise

Clinton ran in 1992 on a promise to change the system but struggled to get consensus on a bill, with Democrats divided and Republicans pushing aggressive changes. Four years later, he signed a law that replaced a federal entitlement with grants to the states, placed a time limit on how long families could get aid and required recipients to go to work eventually.

It has drawn criticism from some liberal quarters ever since. During her presidential campaign last year, Democrat Hillary Clinton faced activists who argued that the law fought for by her husband punished poor people.

No evidence of fraud

Kathryn Edin, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who has been studying welfare since the 1990s, said the law’s legacy has been to limit the cash assistance available to the very poor and has never become a “springboard to work.” She questioned what kinds of changes could be made, arguing that welfare benefits are minimal in many states and there is little evidence of fraud in other anti-poverty programs.

Still, Edin said that welfare has “never been popular even from its inception. It doesn’t sit well with Americans in general.”

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at Heritage, said he would like to see more work requirements for a range of anti-poverty programs and stronger marriage incentives, as well as strategies to improve results for social programs and to limit waste. He said while the administration could make some adjustments through executive order, legislation would be required for any major change.

“This is a good system,” he said. “We just need to make this system better.”

Administration officials have suggested they are eyeing anti-poverty programs. Trump’s initial 2018 budget proposal, outlined in March, sought to sharply reduce spending for Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies, among other programs.

Budget director Mick Mulvaney said this year, “If you are on food stamps and you are able-bodied, we need you to go to work.”
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Retailers worked hard to attract shoppers to stores on Black Friday, offering in-person deals meant to counter the ease of shopping online.

A better economy helped, to be sure, but stores have also tried to improve the store experience and offer better service. They’ve also made a big push toward offering store pickup for online orders.

But online leader Amazon is still the first and only stop for many shoppers. So stores are getting creative with the deals.

Victor Moore said he arrived about two hours ahead of Best Buy’s 8 a.m. opening in Nashville and scored one of the about 14 “doorbuster” deals on a 55-inch Toshiba smart TV for $280, a $220 savings. Moore said he’s done some online shopping, but the allure of in-store-only deals drew him out from behind the computer.

“This is the first successful doorbuster that I’ve ever been a part of,” Moore said. “I’ve been in lines before, but never actually got the items that I was waiting for.”

Annette Peluffo usually avoids Black Friday and buys online. But a $250 gift card reward for buying an iPhone 8 plus at a Target store in Miami was hard to resist. She plans to use the money to buy toys for her nephews and nieces in the coming weeks. “I just came here for the iPhone. I am not going to any other store,” she said.

Not just one day

Still, Black Friday isn’t what it used to be. It has morphed from a single day when people got up early to score doorbusters into a whole month of deals. That has thinned out the crowds. And brick-and-mortar stores face plenty of challenges.

With the jobless rate at a 17-year-low of 4.1 percent and consumer confidence stronger than a year ago, analysts project healthy sales increases for November and December. The National Retail Federation trade group expects sales for that period to at least match last year’s rise of 3.6 percent and estimates online spending and other nonstore sales will rise 11 to 15 percent.

But analysts at management consultancy Bain & Company say Amazon is expected to take half of the holiday season’s sales growth.

Amazon said Friday that Thanksgiving continued to be one of its busiest shopping days, with orders through its app up over 50 percent from a year ago. Overall, online sales on Black Friday rose 18.4 percent to $640 million, from a year ago, as of Friday morning, said Adobe Analytics. Thanksgiving generated a total of $2.87 billion in online spending, up 18.3 percent from a year ago, the data firm said.

About 69 percent of Americans, or 164 million people, intend to shop at some point during the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, according to a survey released by the NRF. It expected Black Friday to remain the busiest day, with about 115 million people planning to shop then.

“The consumer still likes to go to the stores,” said Charles O’Shea, Moody’s lead retail analyst. “I’ve seen a lot of traffic. Yes, there’s going to be a lot of online shopping. But I think the brick-and-mortar stores have done a nice job so far in attracting shoppers.”

That’s true of Karre Wagner, 20, a University of Minnesota student from St. Paul who was shopping at Mall of America in Bloomington with her boyfriend. She bought a Blu-ray player at the mall’s Best Buy store. She says she started holiday shopping on Black Friday, but she likes to go to the mall to shop.

Hands-on experience

“I like to see what I’m buying. I like to touch it, feel it, know exactly what I’m getting, and part of it is the experience,” she said. “I mean, sitting online is fine, but there’s just something about starting the holiday season with Black Friday.”

The shift to online buying is a major factor as industry analysts watch how the nation’s malls fare this holiday shopping season. The Mall of America in Minnesota says that 2,500 people were in line at the 5 a.m. opening Friday, in line with a year ago. Shoppers started queuing up as early as 5:45 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Jill Renslow, Mall of America’s executive vice president of business development, said stores like Nordstrom, Macy’s and Best Buy were crowded. She said the items that caught shoppers’ attention included voice-activated devices like Amazon Echo, nostalgic toys, clothing and shoes.

Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said customer counts were higher and business was better in the North and Northeast, even with fewer promotions from a year ago.

But much depends on whether people are buying or just looking, and if they’re buying things that aren’t on sale as well.

Chuck Boyd said he and his son arrived at 4 a.m. to be among the first five or six in line at Best Buy in Nashville to get one each of about 14 “doorbuster” deals. He said he prefers online shopping, but his son wanted a TV for his apartment at school, so Boyd came along to get one, too.

“I’d much rather do online,” Boyd said. “But this was the deal you could only do in the store.”
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Workers at a half dozen Amazon distribution centers in Germany and one in Italy walked off the job Friday, in a protest timed to coincide with Black Friday to demand better wages from the American online giant.

In Germany, Ver.di union spokesman Thomas Voss said some 2,500 workers were on strike at Amazon facilities in Bad Hersfeld, Leipzig, Rheinberg, Werne, Graben and Koblenz. In a warehouse near Piacenza, in northern Italy, some workers walked off the job to demand “dignified salaries.”

The German union has been leading a push since 2013 for higher pay for some 12,000 workers in Germany, arguing Amazon employees receive lower wages than others in retail and mail-order jobs. Amazon says its distribution warehouses in Germany are logistics centers and employees earn relatively high wages for that industry.

The strikes in Germany are expected to end Saturday.

The Italian action, a one-day strike, was hailed by one of the nation’s umbrella union leaders, the UIL’s Carmelo Barbagallo, as having “enormous symbolic value because it’s clear that progress, innovation and modernity can’t come at the expense and the interests of workers.”

The chief of the CISL umbrella labor syndicate, Annamaria Furlan, called on Amazon to work with unions for “proper industrial relations, employment stability and dignified salaries.”

The Italian strike was called for permanent workers. The unions advised workers who are on short-term, work-on-demand contracts to stay on the job, so they wouldn’t risk losing future gigs.

Amazon says it has created 2,000 full-time jobs in Italy, where unemployment remains stubbornly high.
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Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally has started the holiday shopping season in the United States. It refers to the day when retailers hope to turn a profit — go from “being in the red,” or being in debt, to being “in the black,” or making money.

Many stores opened in the early hours of Friday morning to lure shoppers with big bargains. Some stores even opened on Thanksgiving Day to get a head start on the season.

Black Friday is usually the busiest shopping day of the year in the U.S. 

WATCH: US Retailers Look to Profitable Black Friday Weekend

The National Retail Federation estimates that 69 percent of Americans, or 164 million, people will take advantage of the deals retailers offer on a vast variety of goods in stores and online.

A recent study said Amazon is the top destination for people beginning their holiday shopping.

“I buy pretty much what I can on Amazon,” Lam Huynh told the Associated Press news agency.

Analysts say online giant Amazon is expected to capture half of the holiday season’s sales growth.
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Toys and TVs at J.C. Penney, Barbies at Best Buy, kitchen appliances like wine refrigerators at B.J.’s. As the holiday shopping season officially kicks off Thursday, shoppers may find some surprises at their favorite stores.

Even as retailers are counting on a lift from a better economy, they’re looking beyond economic data and mapping out ways to pick up sales from other retailers as Amazon expands its reach. That can mean opening earlier than rivals on the holidays or even jumping into new product categories. The fight for market share comes as analysts at Bain say Amazon is expected to take half of the holiday season’s sales growth. And Amazon is the top destination for people to begin holiday shopping, according to a September study by market research firm NPD Group.

“The retailers are in survival mode. It’s about stealing each other’s market share,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD. “Amazon is the Grinch. They’re stealing the growth.”

WATCH: Black Friday shoppers

​With the jobless rate at a 17-year-low of 4.1 percent and consumer confidence stronger than a year ago, analysts project healthy sales increases for November and December. The National Retail Federation trade group expects sales for that period to at least match last year’s rise of 3.6 percent and estimates online spending and other non-store sales will rise 11 percent to 15 percent.

Amazon is expected to be a big beneficiary as it cements loyalty among its Prime members and moves into new services and private-label merchandise. The company has introduced more than 20 such brands in the past two years in clothing, electronics, groceries and more, says Bain.

That leaves stores looking at rivals to see where they can pick up sales. There are extra dollars up for grabs this year, after thousands of store locations have closed and several retailers including Gymboree and Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy protection.

Jordan Ascencio, who has sons aged 1, 7, and 8, plans to bypass Toys R Us on Black Friday after being turned off by what she says are dirty stores and skimpy supplies. The latest problem: Her online order was canceled following a large-scale coupon glitch.

“I am not a fan anymore,” said the resident of Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Instead, she plans to buy toys at J.C. Penney and Target.

And with Gymboree shuttering a quarter of its stores, Ascencio is buying more of her children’s clothing at Target, which has launched a number of new private label brands.

Target CEO Brian Cornell recently highlighted that up to $60 billion in consumer spending will be up for the taking in the next few years, and said the chain has been picking up market share in such areas as clothing.

A weekend of shopping

The Thanksgiving weekend, when stores go all-out to attract shoppers, can be an indication of how well they’ll do through the season. About 69 percent of Americans, or 164 million people, intend to shop at some point during the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation. It expects Black Friday to remain the busiest day, with about 115 million people planning to shop then.

Stores like Macy’s, Target and Kohl’s are set to open Thursday evening as they try to woo early shoppers. Walmart starts deals in its stores at 6 p.m. J.C. Penney is opening its doors at 2 p.m., an hour earlier than last year and at least three hours ahead of its department store rivals.

Some retailers are using the weekend to test new product areas before committing to them year-round: Penney says it will have TVs and consumer electronics like game consoles as doorbusters for Thanksgiving and Black Friday only. Penney has also added year-round toy shops and increased its selection of work pants as an apparent move to grab market share from Sears, after last year going back to selling major appliances.

Penney’s Senior Vice President James Starke called these moves “market share plays.”

Both Walmart and Target have been expanding their exclusive toys offerings. Walmart is throwing parties in its stores including ones where kids can play with new toys. Best Buy created its first toy booklet for the holidays. And in its Black Friday ad, the chain features Barbies among smart TVs and other electronics.

Chris Baldwin, CEO of BJ’s Wholesale Club, says it is offering more toys and clothes. In clothing, it’s been able to offer key national brands in areas like casual athletic wear amid rampant store closures. And he says clothing sales are up by at least 10 percent as people don’t go to the mall as much.

“There’s no question that consumer spending has started to tick up and confidence is a little bit better, which is terrific, but we are also seeing some benefit from other retailers,” he said.
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When Gonzalo Perez bought the Castlewood Restaurant last December, it was one of the few outposts among the nearby corn and soybean fields hungry farmers could depend as a place to dine out.

It could become much more than that for Perez.

“It’s my lottery ticket,” he told VOA.

That’s because one of the largest economic development projects in the United States is moving in… right next door.

Taiwanese company Foxconn plans to build a massive flat screen manufacturing and technology facility in nearby Mount Pleasant, employing thousands of workers when completed.

It’s only a few kilometers away from Perez’s restaurant, and he hopes to start cashing in… soon.

“I hope I get a lot of business from construction people in the beginning,” he told VOA from the dining room of another restaurant he owns in a neighboring town which could also benefit from the economic boom the project could bring to the entire region.

WATCH: Foxconn deal

​ “You are going to probably bring a lot of hotels to the area, bring a lot of chain restaurants to the area. This is a big industry,” Perez explained.

“As they build this facility they are going to require 10,000 construction employees, plus around another 6,000 indirect employees,” says Mark Hogan, Secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, or WEDC. 

“When this ecosystem is up and running in the state of Wisconsin it will be an additional 13,000 employees to the state, and another upwards of 20,000 indirect or induced jobs.”

Hogan’s WEDC is one of the chief institutions in the state that worked on the deal to attract Foxconn to Wisconsin.

“We passed special legislation which really created a pathway for the company to be successful in the state. And that had to do with environmental regulations. It had to do with incentives. It had to do with a lot of different things that just kind of cleared a pathway. All things that every other company in the state would have to comply with, but we wanted to create a faster lane for the company to be able to operate under.”

In the package offered to Foxconn is approximately $3 billion dollars in tax incentives if the company invests around $10 billion dollars in its facility and workforce. But those incentives meant to entice the company were also a concern among its critics.

“This is the largest in U.S. history, and it was somewhat surprising because Wisconsin does not generally play this game,” says Steven Deller, Professor of Applied Economics and an Economic Development Specialist with the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

 Deller says one of his concerns, not just as an academic but also as a taxpayer, is the potential for the state to actually owe money to Foxconn.

“But there is the Wisconsin Agricultural and Manufacturing Tax Credit,” he explained to VOA. “The way that the taxpayers may be on the hook for paying some money, if Foxconn is not paying taxes, and they have a tax credit, that means the state is paying Foxconn. So a lot of it is going to hinge on how big that facility becomes. Right not its starting at 3,000 – it could go up to 13,000. We have no idea how big it will actually become.”

For Gonzalo Perez, who came to the U.S. from Mexico 30 years ago and worked his way up from being a laborer in restaurants to now owning two of them, his biggest concern isn’t the size of the plant’s workforce or the tax incentives … it’s the potential increase in the number of his customers.

Right now he says about 200 people visit his restaurant on a good day.

“I hope to triple that,” he says.

He may not have to wait long to see an uptick in business. 

Groundbreaking on the new facility is planned for 2018, and as many as 1000 Foxconn employees could be working in the state later that year. 
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