Do Consumers Need Protection from Their Banks?

Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took its first major enforcement action since it began operating a year ago. It ordered Capital One Bank to refund about $150 million dollars to two million credit card customers. Bureau Director Richard Cordray says Capital One's telephone vendors used deceptive marketing to sell add-ons like credit monitoring and debt protection. Democrats created the Bureau in response to predatory lending practices. Republicans are still trying to slow it down. Is the CFPB's the confidence-building action consumers have been waiting for or just more regulation that will swamp the finance industry in government red tape? Instead of a government agency with new powers, would it be better to break up the big banks and return personal finance to a human scale?