MR. KOJO NNAMDIIn big bold letters, its website urges consumers to know before you owe. The warning comes from the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created last summer by the Dodd-Frank Financial Overhaul Law and opening for business on Thursday. The agency's mission, to create a level playing field where lenders and consumers are both clear on the terms of any deal they make on mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other financial products and services.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIYesterday, President Obama nominated former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to lead the new bureau. But since Cordray still needs Senate confirmation, the agency will make its debut without a chief. As the country focuses on consumer debt and Congress wrangles with the national debt ceiling, we're wondering what you think about what's going on with the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Call us now, 800-433-8850.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIJoining us by telephone from her office in Washington is Deborah Solomon, a staff writer with the Wall Street Journal. Deborah, thank you so much for joining us.

MS. DEBORAH SOLOMONThanks.

NNAMDIAs I mentioned, President Obama named former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What are his qualifications?

SOLOMONWell, he was previously the Attorney General in Ohio. He lost his reelection bid and was tapped by Elizabeth Warren, who is setting up the bureau, to come down here, but he gained a reputation as being a pretty aggressive AG. While he was in Ohio, he went after -- he was actually the first Attorney General to go after some of the banks for shoddy lending practices, foreclosure practices that we've heard so much about. The robo-signing, you know, the people who were basically getting paperwork that was not proper. And so he was one of the first.

SOLOMONHe filed a lawsuit against a unit of Ally GMAC basically. And that sort of spawned this nationwide lawsuit by a bunch of attorneys general. He's also a five-time Jeopardy champion.

NNAMDIWell, that's a big deal, I guess. But Elizabeth Warren conceived of this agency, shepherded it and I can only say that she had what amounts to a fan club who wanted her to be the head of this agency. Why wasn't she selected?

SOLOMONWell, you know, it is actually kinda sad in the end. I mean, this was her baby, her project. She conceived of this thing well before even the financial crisis. She had been urging some sort of, you know, basically an agency that would protect your mortgage and credit card in the same way that you protect a toaster from, you know, lighting on fire, having the same basic safeguards.

SOLOMONAnd she is just a very controversial figure. She's not been shy about going after the financial services industry for her so-called tricks and traps. She's been pretty aggressive in terms of saying, you know, what companies have done wrong, how they tried to defraud or abuse customers. And so she's earned the enmity of a very powerful industry, the financial services industry and of republican lawmakers who basically said there was no way they were going to confirm her.

SOLOMONAnd so the White House -- you know, there were many who wanted her to be the head of this agency. But in the end, they decided that her presence there was actually going to hurt the bureau because it would never be about the bureau. It was always going to be about her. And there are all these efforts on Capitol Hill to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to take away some of its power, to make it more of a commission versus a director-led agency. And they felt like her presence there would make it impossible to get any kinds of concessions or any kind of traction on getting this agency up and running.

NNAMDIBut Robert Cordray, it is my understanding -- Richard Cordray, it's my understanding, also faces some political hurdles in winning Senate confirmation, does he not?

SOLOMONHe certainly does. I mean, anybody does, you know, as a bunch of republican Senators a couple of months ago basically said that they would block the nomination of anybody, even, you know, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. They don't care who it is, what their party affiliation is or background, unless the White House makes some structural changes to this bureau.

SOLOMONAnd what that means is republicans and a lot of industry folks are worried that the bureau just has too much power. It's an independent agency and so they don't report to anybody. And their rules can only be overturned by a two-thirds majority of this new council, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is a group headed by the Treasury Department. And so republican lawmakers basically said, look, if you don't make changes, including turning this into a five-member commission just like the FCC or the FTC or the CFTC, we are not going to approve anybody for the post.

SOLOMONSo that leaves the White House with two choices. One is they can make some minor concessions and try to get republicans to sign on, which it sounds like is what they're going to pursue, or they can do a so-called recess appointment where they basically circumvent the Senate confirmation process and just appoint him, Mr. Cordray, as the CFPB chairman in lieu of -- you know, when the Senate goes in recess.

NNAMDIWe'll have to see whether that happens or not. Deborah, thank you so much for joining us.

SOLOMONSure, thank you.

NNAMDIDeborah Solomon is a staff writer with the Wall Street Journal. She joined us by phone from her office in Washington. What is your thinking about how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should proceed? Call us at 800-433-8850. Are you in favor of one head of the agency or are you for a board heading the agency, which a lot of Republicans are demanding.

NNAMDIJoining us now by telephone from Maine is Robert Manning. He is president of the Responsible Debt Relief Institute, a non-profit in Rochester, New York. He is the author of "Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit." Robert Manning, thank you for joining us.

MR. ROBERT MANNINGOh, Kojo, it's always a pleasure.

NNAMDIWell, Robert Manning, is the agency's work already being done for it? Are loan terms more easy to understand today? Are individuals more careful borrowers? What are the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's biggest challenges in terms of improving the transparency and clarity of loan agreements?

MANNINGWell, I think the biggest problem right now is that, of course, banks haven't been willing to lend. And so we see kind of deceptively that there's been a reduction in consumer debt, particularly credit cards. And part of the slump in housing, of course, is the lack of access to credit, which means that there just aren't enough people out there bidding the prices up.

MANNINGThe real problem now with the agency is that it's become so politicized and the banking lobby is so convinced now that the political tides have turned to their favors that they're gonna stymie any effort to shift the balance of power from the banks to consumers.

NNAMDIIn the last three months, it's my understanding we've seen the first increase in credit card balances in more than a year. Is that good news?

MANNINGWell, it's absolutely important that we start restoring consumer confidence. And one thing is consumers are never going to be confident when they get rejected for a loan. And the critical issue it not just restoring consumer confidence in the U.S., but, as we know, the crisis with the debt ceiling right now that we've got to restore global confidence. And the republican efforts to stymie this nomination is going to have international repercussions because it sends the signals that the U.S. is really not prepared to get its financial house in order and restore consumer confidence in terms of the investor class abroad.

NNAMDIWhat impact will this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have on our credit card use? Are we likely to see changes in our fees or interest rates?

MANNINGWell, we've certainly seen the ability to restrain a lot of the fees that have been really the cash cow of the credit card industry, in terms of late and over limit fees, and the fact now that you had to pay down your lower interest rate instead of the highest interest rate. But the first real important issue is making the contracts more transparent and having somebody to turn to when you feel that there's some deceptive and especially egregious pricing policies.

MANNINGFor example, subprime credit cards or other new fees or the circumvention of a lot of these rules through the issuing of small business credit cards to consumers, et cetera, the average consumer doesn't know where to turn to. Their state attorney general is overwhelmed by their existing backlog of lawsuits. And the Federal Reserve has certainly not been amenable to aggressively -- or pursuing these complaints. So the bureau is really an important step forward to shifting the balance of power back to where consumers have a fighting chance.

NNAMDIIn the last year, it's become much more difficult to get a home loan even if you have good credit, as you pointed out earlier. How long will that last, do you think, and what does that mean for consumers?

MANNINGWell, this is important because while we're dealing with this recession and the fact that most Americans, their consumer confidence and their financial stability is based either on increasing wages of their income or the increased equity in their homes, that not being able to get more credit and financing into this market means that we're going to continue to see housing prices decline.

MANNINGAnd quite frankly, the failure of the administration to aggressively force banks to restructure and pursue an appropriate refinancing strategy with underwater loans means that we're on the cusp now of a double digit -- I mean a double dip recession. And I think this could ultimately be the President's waterloo if the bureau doesn't take an aggressive stance vis-a-vis the banks, because clearly Congress isn't willing to take that issue on.

NNAMDIThank you so much for joining us, Robert Manning.

MANNINGMy pleasure.

NNAMDIRobert Manning is president of Responsible Debt Relief Institute, which is a nonprofit group in Rochester, New York. He's also the author of "Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit." On to the telephones to Tom in Baltimore, Md. Tom, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

TOMHi. Yeah, listen, I've been in financial services since 2000 and, you know, I think that it would be nice to see a federal bureau with some teeth. I've seen the -- you know, I started on the front lines and then I went into compliance. And on the compliance end, they really give -- I find that in financial services they give a, what is it, lip service to compliance. But if a compliance officer actually stands up and says, you know, hey, this is wrong, you shouldn't be doing this, he finds himself pointed towards the door.

TOMThere's only a limited amount of stuff you can do to influence the industry. And mostly, you're given a cube and not an office. And it's fairly clear that -- and you're given responsibility to "oversee," you know, in quotes, large numbers of people at the same time, which is very difficult. And so it's -- you know, the -- at least the broker dealer -- on the broker dealer side, it's tremendously frustrating (unintelligible) ...

NNAMDISo you'd like to see this be an agency that both has teeth and is aggressive.

TOMThat's right. I mean...

NNAMDIOkay.

TOM...the FCC only has a very few number of investigators. They can only show (word?) up to anybody a couple of times, you know, once every couple of years.

NNAMDIOkay.

TOMAnd when they do, they basically get shown a board room...

NNAMDIOkay.

TOM...and given a bunch of pieces of paper that they have to look over. It's merely they really need to clean up the industry (unintelligible) ...

NNAMDIOkay. Let me get a couple more callers in, Tom, to see what their feeling is. Here is Mark in Rockville, Md. Mark, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARKThanks, Kojo. I think the agency's really important 'cause it help...

NNAMDIOh, oh, you're breaking up on us. I'll put you on hold, Mark, until you're in a more secure location. But Mark obviously supports the agency. Here is Sarah in Annapolis, Md. with a slightly different point of view. Sarah, you're turn.

SARAHI do not believe that the regulation will make any difference for any of us. The banks control our politicians in Washington. We have reached the top of the financial pyramid scheme and they don't know what to do anymore. It's a corrupt system that will eventually unravel because it will not be able to be sustained. I don't trust anything that comes out of Washington in regards to protecting us. They have blown up the system and they are not able to fix it. And the Federal Reserve is at the heart of the problem. You have central bankers that control the monopoly of money and this is what we got. And our politicians sell their votes (unintelligible) ...

NNAMDISo what do you think the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will end up doing or not doing?

SARAHWell, you know, the whole protection thing was implemented and who wrote the regulations? The banks. They're partly involved in writing the regulation and that's the problem. You do not have an independent agency that is actually out there looking out for the best interest of the people anymore. And that's the problem (unintelligible) ...

NNAMDIWell, this is supposed to be that agency.

SARAHWell, you know, you need to have a disconnect. You have to sever the link between the politicians and the agency and the people who work for the agency and get rid of the influence where people can buy votes from the politicians. That is wrong. That is not -- that is anti-democratic and...

NNAMDIOkay.

SARAH...and this is the problem.

NNAMDIWe're running out of time. I think I have time for just one more quick quote from George in Forest Heights, Md. George, you got about 20 seconds.

GEORGEI agree with Sarah 100 percent. If you go to secretjustice.com you'll see just how corrupt our system is. (unintelligible)

NNAMDISo you don't think this agency is going to do -- you don't think this agency is going to do any good at all?

GEORGEThe FBI, the Justice Department, the American Bar Association are trashing the nation's economy to cover up for the corruption of the banking industry. (unintelligible)

NNAMDII'm sorry, we're just about out of time. The whole point of this agency, George, is supposed to be to police the banking agency and the banking services are not too happy about who's being nominated to head it. We'll have to see what happens. Thank you all for your calls and thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.