CNBC — the same network that tirelessly defended bonuses for bailed-out bankers, claimed that only “suckers” and “idiots” were victims of predatory lending, and called struggling homeowners “losers” — is suddenly very concerned with the plight of low- and moderate-income Americans. However, it’s not because of massive job loss or rising foreclosure rates.

Instead, network anchors Larry Kudlow and Melissa Francis, along with CNBC contributor James Pethokoukis, spent a segment today claiming that the Obama administration’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) is a terrible idea because it will inevitably be “extremely elitist” and its creation will result in only rich people having access to financial products. Watch it:

Fortunately, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was there to characterize the CNBC position as “unreal.” But CNBC is not the only one using this argument to try and deride the proposed agency. Here’s the American Enterprise Institute’s Peter Wallison in today’s Washington Post:

Conservatives have always argued that liberals are elitists who do not respect ordinary Americans; this legislation seems to prove it. For example, the administration’s plan would allow the educated and sophisticated elites to have access to whatever financial services they want but limit the range of products available to ordinary Americans.

Now, any regulation is bound to carry some cost increase and reduce some choice. For instance, mandatory seat belts and air bags make new cars slightly less affordable to some consumers. Do they make it such that only the wealthy can afford cars? No, of course not. This line of reasoning from CNBC and Wallison is simply a disingenuous distraction from those who fear any kind of regulation.

The point of the new agency is to ensure that consumers have to actively make the choice to purchase a riskier financial product. Consumers would have to opt-in to a non-standard financial product, and the firm offering the product would have to fully disclose that product’s risks. The agency would also be able to ban some of the worst practices of lenders, but as Tim Fernholz put it, “the loans the CFPA [is] designed to ban were premised on the idea that they were risky and consumers didn’t understand them, since that was a better way for banks to make money.”

The reality is that exploitative and predatory lending is often quite profitable for a financial institution, creating an incentive to push consumers toward riskier products, even when a standard product will suffice. This is what the new agency is meant to address. CNBC’s professed concern for the little guy is simply the same Wall Street-centric nonsense that the network always engages in, dressed up in different clothing.

One of the less reported angles of the current recession is the way in which the job losses are hitting men and minorities the hardest. So I was glad to see this piece in the New York Times today, highlighting a new report from the New York City comptroller’s office:

While unemployment rose steadily for white New Yorkers from the first quarter of 2008 through the first three months of this year, the number of unemployed blacks in the city rose four times as fast, according to a report to be released on Monday by the city comptroller’s office. By the end of March, there were about 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, according to the report, even though there are roughly 1.5 million more whites than blacks here.

While not as extreme as in New York, this disparity has been manifesting itself all over the country:

The consensus from economists is that the massive job losses in the manufacturing, construction, and retail sectors are disproportionately hitting minority populations (which also explains why men account for 74.2 percent of the job losses during the recession). In the latest jobs report, 136,000 of the lost jobs were on factory payrolls, while payrolls at builders fell by 79,000 and service industries subtracted 244,000 workers.

There is no obvious remedy here, but since the economic stimulus package focused its job creating measures on the same sectors that are currently hemorrhaging jobs, there will hopefully be some slow-down in the rising minority unemployment rate. Taking a different tact, William Thompson Jr., Comptroller of the City of New York, used his office’s report to take New York to task for providing inadequate unemployment benefits:

Until they are re-employed, this group is the most economically vulnerable and potentially most in need of public income support programs. One might think that New York, with its reputation as a bastion of liberalism and generosity towards the poor, would provide a better cushion for its unemployed residents than many of our sister states. In fact, maximum benefit levels in New York State are lower than in adjoining states and even lower than benefits in some states with a much lower cost of living, such as Kansas and North Carolina.

As Green for All also pointed out, investments in clean energy from the stimulus package and other legislation “will create pathways to prosperity for millions of Americans, especially in low-income communities and communities of color.”