BLOG VIEW: When I was in fourth grade, my elementary school principal called an assembly to announce a new initiative: The student body would be able to write messages on how to improve the school's daily operations and drop these ideas into a new suggestion box that was affixed outside of the principal's office. The principal was extremely happy in announcing this initiative, and she stated that she was eager to hear whatever ideas and opinions the young students had to offer.
A few days later, the principal called the students back for another assembly. This time, however, she was anything but happy. She told us that the suggestion box was taken down because it was overstuffed with a surplus of anti-social and outrageous ideas – one student actually suggested that the girls in our school be required to walk around naked. Needless to say, it was the very last time the principal solicited opinions from the student body.
I came away from the experience with one of the most valuable lessons of my life: People may ask for your opinion, but that doesn't mean that they actually want to hear what you are saying. Granted, the kids in my school offered a harvest of bad ideas – but, really, what could be expected from a bunch of five to 10 year-olds?
Here in the adult world, however, there is also a significant amount of disinterest in hearing someone's ideas and opinions. I ran into this problem again a few weeks ago, following the publication of a Blog View column in which I questioned some comments published on Elizabeth Warren's blog on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) website. Warren had positioned the CFPB mission into a quasi-religious mission, which I found to be problematic at numerous levels.
I went to comments section on Warren's original blog posting and attempted to share a link to my column. The CFPB website requires a review of comments before they are published, which is not unusual. While I did not expect the CFPB staff to agree with my opinion, I expected that they would allow a difference of opinion.
What happened next genuinely surprised me. The CFPB webmaster not only refused to run my input, but the comments section for that page was suddenly locked. Thus, no one would be able to offer observations on the Warren blog. As a new bureaucracy that is supposedly representing the voice of the U.S. consumer, it would appear that no one at the CFPB is interested in voices that do not march in lockstep to the Warren tune.
But the CFPB is hardly alone in its fingers-in-the-ears routine. Last year, the Federal Reserve held four public hearings around the country to solicit input on modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA). The Fed was not shy about seeking opinions – in fact, the hearings were webcast live, and a transcript and audio recording were posted afterward on the Fed's website. A number of executives from the financial services industry came forward to offer their observations and ideas on how to bring this Carter administration-era legislation into the 21st century.
And what did the Fed do with all of the opinions that it gathered from the hearings? Absolutely nothing! Today's CRA is the same CRA from last year, before the hearings began. No explanation has been provided regarding why the Fed ignored everyone's input and kept CRA unchanged.
The fingers-in-the-ears routine is also par for the course in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, which came to power in the 2010 elections with the promise of a new transparency and fairness in government. In January, the House Oversight panel got off to a raucous start under the chairmanship of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who harshly refused to allow a JP Morgan servicing executive to appear at a hearing on the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the panel's ranking Democrat, invited the executive to appear and was astonished that his input was being denied.
‘It's hard for me to understand how we can have today's hearing on the foreclosure crisis without anyone from the industry at the witness table,’ said Cummings in remarks that were placed in the committee record because Issa would not let him discuss the matter during the actual hearing.
If Washington wants to conduct a monologue with the private sector as its mute audience, then it should proceed accordingly. But it is disheartening for the federal government to pretend that it is listening to the financial services industry, only to do a complete 180-degree turn and carry on as if nothing had been said. The industry has a right to have its voice heard, and it can ill afford to allow the government to act as if our opinion carries no value.
– Phil Hall, editor, Secondary Marketing Executive
(Please address all comments regarding this opinion column to hallp@sme-online.com.)
