Elizabeth Warren vs. Wall St.
 

David Ignatius of the WashPost, a savvy writer takes issue with Warren's "war on Wall St."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...c8b_story.html

I was at a holiday party last week and spoke to a friend who retired three years ago as an executive with the Controller of the Currency and is consulting for national banks all over the world from Ireland to Iceland to Bulgaria to Greece to Romania. He's very smart, a dedicated liberal Democrat, but didn't hesitate a minute to offer his view that "that lady is scary," echoing many of the same points made by Ignatius. FWIW, he's a PhD economist who has never worked on Wall St. (and is highly critical of their shenanigans).

I like Ignatius and I've known and have great respect for my CotC friend for nearly twenty years and suspect they may be on to something.

how do you move the masses to the center without a radical dragging them from the fringe?

Warren may be extreme, but maybe that's what it will take to energize the Democratic base and drag the country back towards the center a bit? Sort of in the fashion that the GOP used the Tea Party zealots and other far right lunatics to drag it rightward?

Or will her presence further energize the right and have the opposite effect, as Obamas presidency has done (arguably)?

Dave

Hard to say, but I know I was taken aback by my friend's comments on Warren. He was involved in developing the "stress tests" banks have to periodically undergo and has been deeply involved in fixing banks, here and abroad since the crash and has nothing but contempt for a lot of Wall St. practices. Yet, he insisted that Warren is "dangerous." I may see him again on New Year's Eve and might have to dig a bit deeper.

The Ignatius Op Ed doesn't really say anything, does it?

John

John it does say that Ignatius is disingenuous or has a short memory. Larry Summers who he lauds was one of the trio (Summers, Greenspan & Rubin) that persuaded Clinton to sign Gramm's legislation that repealed Glass Steagall and led to the 2008 debacle. Summers as Treasury Secretary would be a bloody disaster.

Ignatius goes on to say that TARP was a good thing because it bailed out the TBTF banks.

Yet Sheila Bair, Chair of the FDIC and a Republican said the government should have bailed out the homeowners. This would have indirectly bailed out the banks and there would not have been the deepest Recession since 1929.

Senator Warren is simply shining a nice bright light on that revolving door between the Investment banks and Treasury.


TBTF - To Big To Fail (except that now they are even bigger)

Well, there's that. :)

John

Seems to me that Ignatius is taking Warren to task for advancing some of the same rhetoric that I hear on this forum all the time. She's being taken to task by speaking out against a nomination that furthers the incestuous relationship between Wall Street and Washington.

She's currently PO'd about Weiss as Ignatius points out, but at least she's been consistent on the topic. For example:

So when former Congressman Anthony Weiner -- a Democrat from New York -- dismissed my concerns, it was business as usual. Identifying himself as a liberal, Weiner called my criticism of the revolving door culture "overblown" and "petty."

Let's start with some facts.

The Cantor move to Wall Street is not some isolated incident. Just look at the influence of one mega-bank -- Citigroup -- on our government. Starting with former Citigroup CEO Robert Rubin, three of the last four Treasury secretaries under Democratic presidents held high-paying jobs at Citigroup either before or after serving at Treasury -- and the fourth was offered, but declined, Citigroup's CEO position. Directors of the National Economic Council and Office of Management and Budget, the current Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. trade representative, also pulled in millions from Citigroup.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizab...b_5835682.html

Ignatius doesn't like Warren rhetoric because in the process he thinks she's dissing Obama's record:

Has Warren apologized for getting this wrong or conceded that the financial recovery program engineered by Geithner, Summers and then-Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke was a success? Not to my knowledge. But in the process, she disowns a Democratic president’s historic achievement.

He goes as far as suggesting that Warren is rhetoric is nothing more than neo-populism. That suggests that Ignatius regards Warren as someone who would, as a populist/political opportunist, trash sound economic policy for the sake of advancing her political career and agenda. Maybe that's what Finn's friend is concerned about as well.

^^^^ But was it sound economic policy? From the banks point of view probably, from the homeowners who took the royal screwing not so much. I like Sheila Bair's approach better.

I like her, because the Republicans hate her. I had a good laugh watching Faux News on the treadmill this morning. They went on for nearly a half hour solid about Hillary and the signs that she might not run. Then, someone mentioned Warren.............:eek:

You could smell the fear. It smelled like..............soiled diapers.:rolleyes:

Dave

I read that steamin' pile of self congratulatory blowhardiness from Ignatious yesterday. That dude has a blind spot bigger'n a Buick. :rolleyes:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ory/?tid=sm_fb

Yeah, it's a blog but...........:)

I posted that article and its graph on another thread. Good stuff.

I believe you're on to something.

Next thing you two will be calling her a commie out to sap our precious bodily fluids while destroyin' Uhmerica...:rolleyes:

Nah, but I'm pretty skeptical of populist politicians, regardless of their political stripes. I'm not inferring she's another Huey Long, but skepticism of any and all politicians is a healthy thing IMO.

I think there's plenty of blame to go around for events leading up to the collapse of the mortgage industry. Some folks like to obsess or focus on a single piece of the puzzle, possibly like Ms Warren. I suspect Ms Warren would hold blameless or overlook the culpability of those who knowingly took out mortgages that they knew would be difficult to pay. The banks employed a dubious strategy to mitigate the risk of poorly underwritten mortgages while the Fed pushed a policy of (ridiculously) easy money to encourage expanded home ownership.

Was it sound economic policy that pulled out of that mess? Its not what I would have wanted to see, but it was a policy that was chock full of political expediency that happened to work out OK, at least in the short run. I think a precedent of financial institutions willing to assume risk against of belief that they'll be bailed out by tax payers sets a bad precedent and creates of potentially toxic environment. Time will tell.

Damn! I Agree! (At least I think I agree.)

John

Yeah, we do. I think I need to sit down. ;)

By the time the balloon burst, the choice was to bail out the banks or let the world economy collapse like 1929. It took balls to make the unpopular choice, but it was the right choice. What sucks is that Congress and the regulators set the whole ball in motion years before.

Don' get yer lace curtains in an uproar Pat. Just messin' with ya.;)

Indeed. The righty blowhards at the Post are having conniptions over Miss Liz. :D

Good but she's staying in the senate in Teddy's and John's seat. She'll drag Hillary back from the right to the center for '16.

Huzzah!!:)

If the banks that made the loans had to actually carry the paper themselves and make good on it, it's unlikely this would have happened.
I blame the greed of those who make it their business to outsmart the market while making its policy, you can't expect the general public to be smarter than the experts in this gaming of a rigged system.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

You mean you aren't getting on the 'blame the victims of predatory lending practices' crazy train?

Yeh, me neither Steve.

Whelly must've been reading that lunatic Jennifer Rubin's latest blather at the Post. :rolleyes:
here

I hadn't seen that, but tell me if you can where you think she's wrong?

after reading that i can tell you she's a god awful human

merry christmas!

Why am I not surprised that you would agree with the Post's resident nutcase? :rolleyes:

David Ignatius a resident nutcase? He's a very smart and distinguished journalist - one of the best there is.

He is a former Adjunct Lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and currently Senior Fellow to the Future of Diplomacy Program. He has received numerous honors, including the Legion of Honor from the French Republic, the Urbino World Press Award from the Italian Republic, and a lifetime achievement award from the International Committee for Foreign Journalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ignatius

Admittedly, he's no Ed Schultz.;)

No, no, no! Jennifer Rubin!

John

Bingo. :)

Another oops on my part. Rubin is a Gawd-awful twit. I can't figure out why the Post has her on staff. They have some accomplished, notable conservative writers on their Op-Ed page, but she's not even worthy of Fox News - for sure she's stupid enough, but not easy enough on the eyes.

Ed Schultz? Admittedly he's no Rush http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Schultz but I meant Jen Rubin. ;) No worries Finn.

All I need to know about Ed Schultz is that he used to be a Raider. ;)

John

He's Rush Limbaugh for liberals.

Funny how he started out as a Republican right wing radio blowhard. :rolleyes:

I think EW should be cloned by the Democrats. Her common sense approach scares the bejesus out of the gamers of our financial system now. They hate the fact she has pulled the curtain back to expose the secrets dealings. We can see just how well those pros predicted any or all crashes. Especially if they don't have to pickup the pieces, letting someone else pay for their recklessness.








Barney

Whoa, Wells Fargo and Countrywide both deliberately sold those sub-prime mortgages knowing full well that the risk of default was there. Hell I even had some clown come to us suggesting we should take out a mortgage to get the cash because our property was going to be worth over a million in two years. I suspect it was that same line of BS they gave to everyone - buy now because in two years you won't be able to afford this property.

The way the mortgage system is set up in this country fraud was inevitable.

Give that man a cigar!

Well finn the only token liberal WaPo has is E,J, Dionne, the rest of their OpEd writer's are right of center, some way right of center.