Follow The Money

     We have had a lot of government scandals in the last few years.  We have the Black Panthers voter intimidation, ATF’s Fast & Furious, the DOJ, the EPA, Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, the VA health care, and now freeing five dangerous terrorists for Bergdahl.  It is hard to keep up.  We almost need a new alphabet for all the acronyms.  The continual incompetence and cover-ups make it hard to keep up or concentrate on one scandal. 

     Here is one more that should concern us.  It is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or CFPB.  The Dodd-Frank financial reform law created the CFPB three years ago with the stated primary objective of protecting the American consumer.  This sounds great, but I have serious concerns with the data the CFPB is collecting.  The CFPB is monitoring 991 million U.S. credit card accounts and 53 million residential mortgages.

     Anyone that was concerned with the NSA collecting our phone conversations should really be worried about the actions of the CFPB.  U.S. Representative Dan Webster has serious concerns.  He made the following statement in a House Rules Committee hearing.  “So this is far more than the NSA.  Far more than their metadata, which only collects phone numbers but not names, far more because they have no re-authorization, far more because there is no appropriation restrictions placed on it.  This is more than just NSA style, this is more Gestapo-style collection of data on individual citizens that have no clue what is happening.”  The House of Representatives has passed eleven bills to protect our privacy, but these have never been recognized or even debated in the Senate.  Do we need a change?  

     In my book, Business Fits (http://BusinessFits.com) I have a chapter on market research, which is essential for a good marketing plan.  The statement “Follow the money” was made famous by the character Deep Throat in the movie All The President’s Men. 

     If I know where people shop and how they spend their money, I know how market to them.  The same is true with politics.  If the political elite knows where people shop and how they spent their money, they know how to campaign and advertise in order to control them politically.

     We must be very concerned with this invasion of our privacy.  The political elite has clearly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with our personal information.  It is time for some real change.