Hullabaloo

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

 
Blood And Teeth

by digby

Elizabeth Warren for president:

"My first choice is a strong consumer agency," the Harvard Law professor and federal bailout watchdog said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor."

There's been a steady leak of Senate proposals to fix the dysfunctional way federal regulators protect consumers from abusive lenders. One was an independent unit housed within the Treasury Department; another was a new entity, housed in the Federal Reserve, with little independence or power.

The Senate shouldn't waste its time, asserts Warren, explaining that current proposals fail to address some of her key priorities such as arming the proposed agency with independent rule-making authority, without interference by bank regulators.

"My 99th choice is some mouthful of mush that doesn't get the job done," Warren said.

Damn. Now that's how you negotiate.

Of course Warren isn't a member of the club, so she doesn't feel obliged to maintain "comity." But then, neither do the Republicans.

She also isn't beholden to Wall Street because she isn't part of that world and so can take a strong adversarial stance. The problem with our system is that there are so few in her position who are willing or able to wade into the public debate. (Almost none of them, unfortunately, have a vote in the Senate.) This is why Wall Street holds so much more sway than it ought to.

I'm sure she's thought of in the same way Brooksley Born was --- "not a team player." It's a thankless position to be in but she's doing it anyway. Good for her.


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digby 3/03/2010 11:00:00 AM |