Starting today, Elizabeth Warren is working on behalf of the middle-class by creating the Consumer Financial Protection agency, the most powerful consumer advocacy organization in American history.
In interviews with ABC and Bloomberg television, it is clear that she cares less about the politics surrounding this agency and is more concerned about getting to work now as a fierce advocate for consumers:
The White House declined to say definitively that she was ruled out as a future candidate, though it said she would play an instrumental role in choosing the director.
Warren said the issue of a nomination had been on the table during her conversations with Obama.
"He said, 'You can get to work tomorrow if you don't care much about titles,'" she told ABC television. "I said, 'Mr. President, that's the job I want, let me go to work tomorrow. That's what I want to do.'"
On Bloomberg television she said: "If I was looking for a nomination, the time for me to say that was in conversations I had with the president."
http://www.reuters.com/...
Apparently she doesn't care about titles. She cares about getting to work. She has wasted no time doing just that.
I'm coming to Washington to try to help get this agency started, to do the things we need to do for American families and to get these markets up and functioning," she said on Fox television. "And if I can be helpful, I don't care if you call me the dog-catcher.
http://www.reuters.com/...
Her first acts have not been to burn bridges but build them with the nation's bankers:
"I have more reaching out to do," Warren said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, referring to the bankers she has criticized for taking advantage of consumers. "They are not the people I have been hanging out with for a long, long time."
She said she plans to "reach out, not just because I’ve got to be gracious, I’ve got to reach out because I’ve got to learn."
While saying she wasn’t cowed by the banking lobby or worried about being confirmed by the Senate, she concluded that "every day spent fighting is a day not spent working to get the agency up and running."
snip
On reaching out to bankers, she said she has already begun to make calls and declined to provide names.
"I don’t want to embarrass anybody at this point," she said. She said she’d had some "conversations" today.
One of those executives was Vikram Pandit, chief executive officer of Citigroup, Inc.
Pandit and "Elizabeth Warren had a good conversation when they spoke on the phone today," said Molly Meiners, a Citigroup spokeswoman. "Citi is very focused on helping consumers in our country, and Vikram looks forward to working with Ms. Warren as she guides the development of this important new agency."
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
So far, so civil.
If past behavior can be a guide, I do not expect this to last but I also don't expect Elizabeth Warren to retreat when Wall Street and the bankers attempt to depict her as a shadowy czar who wants to take away America's financial freedom and micromanage every monetary transaction.
For Americans concerned that their grievances about our financial system are not being heard by the President and that the credit cards are stacked against them, the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as an advisor reporting directly to the President is extremely welcome news:
Warren is "one of the country’s fiercest advocates for the middle class," Obama said today in the White House Rose Garden as he announced her appointment to shape the new agency. She will serve both as an assistant to Obama and as a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.
The two posts won’t present any difficulties, Warren said.
"I actually am going to wear two hats," she said in the interview. "That was exactly how the president described it to me."
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
Elizabeth Warren has been an outspoken advocate for consumers for a long time and she speaks in a way that everyone understands and she is going to shape an agency unlike any other on behalf of Americans.
This combination rarely happens in Washington. Yet here we are:
Ms. Warren is widely credited with coming up with the idea for the agency in a 2007 essay she wrote in the journal "Democracy." The subprime lending boom was close to exploding, and Democrats turned to her for advice on how to redesign the financial system.
Her profile in Washington grew rapidly, in part because she was selected in 2008 as chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was charged with monitoring the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. She has been critical of how money was allocated by the government, alleging it went to large financial companies that didn't do enough to continue lending.
She speaks often of "tricks and traps" in consumer lending, saying they should be banned. She has often stopped short, though, of calling for the end of specific loans or practices, according to a review of her speeches, interviews and writings. Instead, she calls for fundamental changes to the way rules are written in Washington.
"There really is an element— at least in this crisis—about how the 'old boys club' brought us not just to the brink of ruin, but beyond that, and how they still want to play the same way." Ms. Warren told the Boston Globe when they filmed a video of her in December. "Somebody's gotta say no."
Ms. Warren, an expert in contract law and bankruptcy, has called for a simplified two-page agreement for mortgages, credit cards, and overdraft protection.
http://online.wsj.com/...
There is so much good that is going to come from this, that the best way to expend energy thinking about this Elizabeth Warren appointment is helping her in any way we can to flourish in the role that is the calling of her life. She wants this. She has not wasted a single moment as she has begun working on our behalf.
Congratulations to her, everyone here that signed a petition on her behalf, Secretary Geithner and the President for making it so.