Amy Goodman has noted, "The [new Consumer Financial Protection] Bureau's director will be the most powerful new banking regulator in decades and the first with the exclusive mission of focusing on consumers. She [Elizabeth Warren] chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel over the bank bailout and is an outspoken consumer advocate." The BAD BIG BANKS of America need a tough regulator working on behalf of family of families. Just consider how many American's are out of work or out of homes due to BAD BIG BANKS that have not apologized to America's families for continuing to screw them while accepting massive federal bail-outs over the past 3 years.
With the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren, has it right. The focus of American business policy should be on FAMILIES. Warren said earlier this summer, "[W]e have an opportunity now to pick up the tools that were laid out in this new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And, look, unused tools don't do anyone any good. The point is to pick them up and use them. And it's going to be tough. The era of my grandmother in the Great Depression, it was tough then. Remember, Franklin Roosevelt faced his economic royalists. Remember, it took him years to get his entire economic package into place. It paid off. It was tough, but it paid off."
AMERICANS NEED NO MORE STICKUPS FROM BANKS
The sad news is that AMERICA'S BIGGEST and MOST DANGEROUS BANKS (and some Obama appointees) are fighting like mad to make sure Elizabeth Warren is not put in place as head regulator, and they have been working diligently already to undermine the new Consumer Financial Bureau. Here is an excerpt from an Amy Goodman interview with Robert Scheer. Scheer is asked to comment on Elizabeth Warren's efforts on behalf of consumers and families over the past two decades--i.e. while most of the federal government had its head in the sand.
AMY GOODMAN: Were going to play an excerpt of Elizabeth Warren's speech that she gave recently at Netroots Nation next. But what about Elizabeth Warren, seen as the frontrunner for this job, but seen as a [sort of unwanted outsider by many White House appointees, so]--there's a quiet campaign in the White House, or perhaps not so quiet, among people like Rahm Emanuel, who supposedly, rumor has it, are opposing her?
ROBERT SCHEER: Yeah, well, look, come on. You can't look to the Democratic Party, you know, hacks, for leadership on this. First of all, most of these people are veterans of the Clinton administration. They're the same people who destroyed Brooksley Born. Brooksley Born was one of the most competent lawyers in this country, dealing--she represented banks. She understood more about these derivatives than anyone around, actually, when she was appointed to what was supposed to be a lesser agency, you know, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. And she spotted this problem. You know, seventeen times in testimony before congressional committees, Brooksley Born sounded the alarm that there was going to be a housing meltdown, that this thing had gone wild, that we had enabled Wall Street graft. She knew the inside outside. It was people like Summers, who's now in this administration, I think, who don't want Elizabeth Warren--Timothy Geithner, and there are plenty of others. There are many Goldman Sachs veterans and other big Wall Street veterans in this administration, as well. And they destroyed Brooksley Born. And they're threatened by Elizabeth Warren, because Elizabeth Warren represents consumers. She's a brilliant legal mind, and just as Brooksley Born is. And Elizabeth Warren said, "Wait a minute. You know, what kind of, you know, government is this, when you're caring about Wall Street and you're ignoring the pain out there?"
And I have to stress this, Amy. This is not some abstract--you know, I studied economics in graduate school, and I could do some mathematical modeling and all that stuff. This is not a game. It's not a political game. It's not a mathematics game. They're real human beings who invest their whole life putting shelter over their family, caring about their family. And when you go out in these communities--and I've done some of that--you know, it's so depressing. You know, I mean, I talked to people in Riverside who cleaned office buildings, you know, in Long Beach and commuted to Riverside so their kids could live in a better neighborhood. And they bought this house, and they made the payments. They made the payments. They did everything they were supposed to do. And the neighborhood went into the toilet, and they lose everything. They lose everything. And that story is repeated millions of times in America.
And the guys who did it to us, they weren't those vicious right-wingers. And, you know, it wasn't all the people that we liberals like to attack. It was our friends. Let's get that straight, you know? When I call this the Clinton bubble, you know, I mean it very seriously. It was our friends. It was people, you know, like the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who claim to be liberal Democrats. But they were being rewarded with enormous bonuses. You know, enormous bonuses. They made out just as well as the people running Citigroup. These were not government agencies. These were actually traded on the stock market, but posing as government-supported agencies. And the fact of the matter is that the damage that was done to us was done by people who talk a very good game. You know, Robert Rubin contributed money to the Harlem dance group, you know? Jesse Jackson even supported the reversal of Glass-Steagall. There's a whole chapter in my book, you know? The people who acted in a very bad way, in this book, were people who we would probably be more comfortable talking to, you know, over a drink somewhere than the others. So, you know, my book, you know, it's called "How Reagan Democrats--Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street and
Mugged Main Street." And the Clinton Democrats, who now control the Obama administration, are--you know, this is turning the henhouse over to the foxes. And I would say the record of Obama on this has been abysmal. He has been a frontman for Wall Street, and it is shocking.Robert Sheer, by the way, is the author of THE GREAT AMERICAN STICKUP. You can see and read his whole interview here.
You can see and read a speech by Elizabeth Warren here.
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