Elizabeth Warren Could Boost Public Confidence

[Ruby the Liberal]

Obama’s economic team is the ultimate insiders’ club, which is exactly why an outsider is needed to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

There has been, in recent days, a groundswell of support for Elizabeth Warren, one of the top candidates to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. One less-noted reason for all this outspoken fervor is that, for many liberal critics, Barack Obama’s economic team is something of an intellectual cabal. Starting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Larry Summers, the senior members of this team are all people “who have Bob Rubin on their speed dial,” as one of these critics told me. They are, in other words, part of the deregulatory brigade led by then–treasury secretary Rubin in the 1990s who helped set the stage for the financial disaster by giving Wall Street most of what it wanted, whether it was Glass-Steagall repeal or reduced regulatory oversight of derivatives trading.

They are also people who tended to take one side of the great debate over the current financial-reform law. The Obama administration, along with Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank—for whom the new law is named—generally adopted a “babysitter” view of reform. They wanted a lot of new rules, particularly greater capital reserves, leverage limits, and more regulatory oversight. But these were intended as rules for governing Wall Street largely as it is. On the other side of the debate were those who wanted more New Deal–style reform: change to the underlying company structure and incentive system on Wall Street. Chief among them were former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who sought to, respectively, bar federally insured banks from the riskiest trading and ban banks from swaps trading. The final version of the bill is something of a compromise between the two points of view, but overall the winners are the Rubinesque minimalists. The administration, for the most part—at least until Obama’s 11th-hour embrace of “the Volcker rule”—sought to avoid fundamental changes.

More: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/27/elizabeth-warren-could-boost-public-confidence.html

[90-percent]

1. As I posted on DU recently

In a copy of my letter to the White House, I informed them that the appointment of Elizabeth is the tipping point for my continued support of this administration. Do we need even more Corporate Lobbyists extracting even more of our tax money for the benefit of corporations at the expense of we the voters? I THINK NOT.

-90% jimmy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=380546&mesg_id=382521

[arcane1]

2. Same here

It's the sink or swim moment.

[cascadiance]

3. Here is another good older video clip from UCTV that people should see of her...

That really shows how much she understands the challenges that middle class families face today versus the times before Reagan. She really makes arguments with hard data here that are hard to counter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Thanks for that link!