"If only someone in government had been looking out for consumers, the sub prime mortgage mess might never have happened," San Antonio Business Journal reports. "That theory is driving President Barack Obama’s call for the creation of a new office within the federal government - a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It would be dedicated to looking out for consumers as they do mortgage, credit card, student loan and other business with financial institutions - as part of a set of proposals announced June 17. The proposed agency, part of the most sweeping financial reform plan since the Great Depression, would take on some of the powers currently carried out by other regulators or the Federal Reserve."