Why it was worth getting Cordary into his job, and getting him working... (VIDEO)

The bizarre alternate Universe where Insurance Companies have ASKED for more Federal Regulation is this one!

Uhh...say that again Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post??

A lot of coverage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law focuses on what isn’t happening: How the White House can’t get a head for its Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through Congress in the face of Republican opposition, how the law could become more vulnerable with the retirement of one of its architects, Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. Just this morning, as Suzy reports, former FDIC chair Shelia Bair called for part of the law to be scrapped altogether.

But, quietly, parts of the law are indeed moving forward, albeit with few headlines and little fanfare. This very morning, a new Dodd-Frank office got underway with work to reform one of the country’s most complex regulatory systems: insurance regulation.

The Federal Insurance Office was created by Dodd-Frank to bring a more national voice to how we oversee insurance. Until now, a federal agency to focus on insurance regulation just didn’t exist.

“Despite the sector’s size and important,” said deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, “the federal government had no central repository for comprehensive insurance expertise.”

The new office doesn’t make many headlines; you won’t see many mentions outside of some trade journals. But industries understand its important: The FIO drew a standing-room-only crowd to its first ever meeting at Treasury this morning. And at that meeting, insurance executives asked the Dodd-Frank agency to bring more federal regulation into their industry — not exactly an everyday affair in Washington.

It’s not a normal request, but insurance isn’t exactly a normal industry when it comes to regulation. States tend to oversee all insurance products, from health to life to homeowners. And that worked fine decades ago, when insurance companies tended to be more localized. But for any national company operating now, having 50 state regulators set 50 different standards has made it a complex system.

“The current system is highly inefficient,” says John Johns, chairman of the Protective Life Corp., which sells life insurance policies. Or, as Consumer Federation of America’s J. Robert Hunter put it, “If Nebraska is regulating hurricane insurance in Florida and flood insurance in Georgia, we have a problem.”

Rachel Maddow's Interview with Elizabeth Warren (VIDEO)

Frankly, she sounds pissed...at Republicans:

"Let me put it this way," said Warren on yesterday's call. "I'm saving all the rocks in my pockets for Republicans. And if that's too partisan for you, then shame on me."

That was from an Atlantic piece that's out today. I would like to note that Nancy Scola made it sound like Obama passed her over for Richard Cordray.

Actually, no, that's exactly what Nancy said:

Elizabeth Warren is ready to name and shame. After 10 long months spent crafting a brand-new federal agency in her image and likeness, years before that willing the institution into statutory existence, only to be passed over on Sunday in favor of Richard Cordray just as the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is moving out of beta, Warren, on a press call late yesterday afternoon, was eager to share her clarity on who's to blame for the especially precarious position the new federal-friend-to-the-American-consumer now finds itself in.

Uh...no.

Rich will be a strong leader for this agency. He has a proven track record of fighting for families during his time as head of the CFPB enforcement division, as Attorney General of Ohio, and throughout his career. He was one of the first senior executives I recruited for the agency, and his hard work and deep commitment make it clear he can make many important contributions in leading it. Rich is smart, he is tough, and he will make a stellar Director. I am very pleased for him and very pleased for the CFPB.

And if you watch the interview below, she gets even more specific.

This is a little seen, little read blog. I should not be doing more reporting than Atlantic Monthly professionals.

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Rachel wisely held back, and let the Professor do her thing.

UPDATE: 11:57AM Pacific. Watching that last part again. Rachel pretty much asked her "Are you running for Senate", and not only did Dr. Warren not say no, that was as much in the affirmative as I'd seen her say. Dr. Warren still did not say she was running, but this was the closest I've seen her come to saying she was in.

Hey! Fellow Lefties! Can we ease up on the Elizabeth Warren obsession for pity's sake?

I've always been fascinated my fellow Liberal's obsession over Elizabeth Warren. It ranks right up there with our (their) collective obsession with Van Jones. It's a broken record already: "If X person is not given Y position, then this is the latest betrayal Barack Obama has given to the Liberal People of America."

Stop it.

I hope I don't have to prove my pro-Dr. Warren bona-fides on this space, but it you need proof, you need only look up my blogpost: Elizabeth Warren for Consumer Protection...if she wants it.  (Written a year ago, just about to the day).  Yes, she is that great.  Yes, I want her to have the job...

...if she wants it.

Yes. If.

So, we've heard her say it plainly that she wants the job right?  I mean that's been all over the place (by which I mean, it hasn't).  Does she want another job, say, Scott Brown's?  Does she want to go back to Harvard?


SIDEBAR: I mean, I know it's hard to believe but those Academic jobs are pretty damn sweet.  Right now, dear ol' Dad goes into the office every day, but mostly does his own thing (which would be Researching Mathematics), teaches three classes, keeps a generous Office Hours schedule (which means his students can actually reach him and ask him questions), and gets well paid for his efforts.  He can eat dinner with his wife.  Go out on weekends and take vacations as necessary, and can actually shut off his phone from time to time.


And you're saying that Elizabeth Warren wouldn't want this, after all she's been through??  You're suggesting that she should prefer getting grilled by the likes of Senator Richard Shelby from the State of Toyota--errrr, I mean, Alabama.

Ezra had similar thoughts:

Whoever is nominated to lead the CFPB is going to spend the next year of his life being filibustered by Republicans. The very best he can hope for is a recess appointment, in which case his tenure in the position would be relatively swift. So the question isn’t who you want leading the CFPB for the foreseeable future. It’s who you want spending his or her time being stopped from leading the CFPB for the foreseeable future. And it’s not clear that the answer to that question is “Elizabeth Warren.”

Warren, after all, has another option that she appears to be taking seriously: challenging Scott Brown in the 2012 election. For reasons I’ve outlined here and Bob Kuttner elaborates on here, there’s reason to think she would be a very effective candidate. But if she wants to do that, she can’t spend the next year being blocked from leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has to spend at least part of it preparing for her candidacy.

Now, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Warren would prefer to lead the agency she’s built than launch a Senate campaign that may or may not succeed. But launching a Senate campaign that may or may not succeed seems like a clearly more effective way to protect her agency and further her ideas than being blocked from leading the agency she’s built.

Meanwhile, Richard Cordray is actually in a very good position to spend the next year or two being blocked from running the CFPB. Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general with a great reputation in consumer-protection circles and Warren’s blessing, doesn’t have anything to run for until Ohio’s governorship opens in 2014. By all accounts, he’s a good choice to lead the agency now, if he can somehow get past the Republicans, and spending a few years publicly fighting to protect consumers is unlikely to hurt him back home.

Dr. Warren seems high on the choice (because it looks like she's the one who made it):

Rich will be a strong leader for this agency. He has a proven track record of fighting for families during his time as head of the CFPB enforcement division, as Attorney General of Ohio, and throughout his career. He was one of the first senior executives I recruited for the agency, and his hard work and deep commitment make it clear he can make many important contributions in leading it. Rich is smart, he is tough, and he will make a stellar Director. I am very pleased for him and very pleased for the CFPB.

And she is clear eyed in what's ahead:

Make no mistake: this agency still has enemies in Washington, D.C. And they have a plan.

In May, forty-four Republican Senators wrote a letter saying that they will block anyone from serving as CFPB Director. Many of them don't like the agency or the ideas that led to its creation. They lost that fight last summer in a straight-up vote, but they say they will use a filibuster over a Director nomination to undercut the agency. Without a Director, however, the agency's authority over payday lenders, debt collectors and other non-bank financial companies can be challenged. The Republicans say that they will permit a Director only if the agency is amended to make it less independent and less likely to act.

I remain hopeful that those who want to cripple this consumer bureau will think again and remember that the financial crisis -- and the recession and job losses that it sparked -- began one lousy mortgage at a time. I also hope that when those Senators next go home, they ask their constituents how they feel about fine print, about signing contracts with terms that are incomprehensible, and about learning the true costs of a financial transaction only later when fees are piled on or interest rates are reset. I hope they will ask the people in their districts if they are opposed to an agency that is working to make prices clear or if they think budgets should be cut for an agency that is trying to make sure that trillion-dollar banks follow the law. I hope they will ask their constituents if they are opposed to the confirmation of someone who saved $2 billion for retirees, investors, and business owners as Ohio Attorney General and who has worked hard on the front lines fighting against fraudulent foreclosures and abusive lending practices.

This week is the culmination of two years of hard battles. The President put the consumer agency in his first outline of financial regulatory reform, and he never wavered in his support for it. The agency was declared dead several times, and weak versions and lousy bargains were offered again and again, but he stood fast. When he signed Dodd-Frank into law, creating the new agency, he offered me the chance to stand it up -- something for which I will always be grateful. The fights continued, and again, the President never wavered in his support. In fact, just last week he issued a veto threat if the Republicans try to move the agency's funding to the political process, and I know that in the future he won't allow opponents of reform to succeed in weakening the CFPB.

Oh yeah.  Veto threat.  That's a total betrayal.

And how seriously should we take the idea of Dr. Warren running for Senate? Well, she took the time to meet with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to Roll Call.

The Fireside chat for October 30, 2010 (VIDEO)

Ahead of the elections, the President says no matter what happens both parties must work together to boost the economy, and expresses concern about statements to the contrary from Republican Leaders.

The Fireside chat for October 23, 2010 (VIDEO)

The President hones in on the passage of Wall Street Reform over the ferocious lobbying of Wall Street banks as a pivotal moment in the last two years, and condemns Republicans in Congress for vowing to repeal it.



Count this among the many, many consequences for sitting on your hands and not voting this November.

The Foreclosure Meltdown. How it happened. And why the Daily Show is doing better reporting on it than anyone.

In an era where we have to read about complicated economics stories through the lens of a generally lazy Mainstream Media, its no wonder its possible that the American public can learn about these things that are happening to them and theirs, still not understand it, and consequently stop giving a @#$% about.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't people out there, trying to let you know exactly what happened to it. It's just sad that the comedians and writers on the Daily Show are out there doing a better job than say, trained and credentialed Journalists and pundits.

So, let me start with a basic introduction to what's happened, courtesy of the Washington Post's webpage on this matter:

During the housing boom, millions of homeowners got easy access to mortgages. Now, some lenders have discovered many mortgage documents were faked, forged or otherwise mishandled. Ally Financial, J.P. Morgan Chase and PNC have halted foreclosures in 23 states as they attempt to determine the depth and scope of the irregularities. Bank of America has gone a step further, temporarily stopping all foreclosure sales nationwide. Meanwhile, attorneys general in several states have put moratoriums on all foreclosures, and politicians in Washington are beginning to push for a federal investigation into the matter. President Obama has "pocket vetoed" a bill that could make it difficult for homeowners to challenge documents prepared in other states.

One of the things about the bill the President vetoed, is that we're still not exactly sure how it got through the Senate in the first place.

Or are we?:

It happened because Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States, was a notary public from Vermont, according to Judiciary Committee aides.

It all started, the aides said, when committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) participated in an Aug. 3 "Why Coolidge Matters" event with the National Notary Association at the Library of Congress. "Senator Leahy was so very gracious to carve out some of his time to join us at the Library of Congress event, and we are grateful for his kind words regarding Calvin Coolidge as well as his support of the important roles played by Notaries Public," wrote Michael Robinson, executive director of the National Notary Association, in a Sep. 14 email to Leahy's office. Robinson asked if anyone from Leahy's office would be interested in H.R. 3808, the notarization bill that had passed the House of Representatives by a voice vote in the springtime.

"In September, after hearing from the National Notary Association....Senator Leahy, in consultation with the Committee's Ranking Member, Senator Jeff Sessions, examined the legislation," Judiciary Committee aides wrote in an email. "Having heard no objections from advocates, States or stakeholders, and having checked with the Department of Justice, the bill was discharged from the Judiciary Committee. It was passed with the unanimous consent after every Senate office was notified that it was being considered and there were no objections."

So...because a bunch of Accountants sucked up to Patrick Leahy (even though he's a Fort McHenry fave, not covered in glory here) dangling fellow Vermonter Calvin Coolidge like a piece of catnip, and suddenly this thing was pushed through with minimal reflection and examination?

Quick tip to Senator Leahy, who's forgotten more about Legislation than I'll ever know: if Jeff Sessions thinks a bill is unobjectionable...[if you can't guess the rest yourself, we're in bigger trouble than I thought].

Ezra Klein commented on the Bill itself and the President's pocket veto:

Is this an unexpected gift that will slow foreclosures and give distressed homeowners more leverage to negotiate principal write-downs in court? Is this a nightmare that will throw the housing market into chaos, freaking out other markets and slowing the necessary clearing? Both?

I'm still trying to figure it out. And it looks like I'll have more time to do so. The White House has announced that President Obama will "pocket veto" H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010, which would've allowed banks to shortcut the current notarization process by forum shopping to states that are willing to sign off on anything. That might have fixed much of this foreclosure mess, but it would've fixed it by bailing banks out of a situation they created -- not the sort of thing the White House wants to do just weeks before the midterm.

Beardy McIdiot, aka Daily Show host and Rally-holder Jon Stewart put it another way:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Foreclosure Crisis
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

More as it comes, Bank of America has stopped foreclosures (as said above) but if you wanted a basic lay of the land, there it is.

Rachel Maddow's interview with Elizabeth Warren (VIDEO)

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Ezra Klein: Things that were once considered "Pipe Dreams"

I almost forgot this, a really nice bit of writing from Ezra Klein:

The White House held a conference call today for Elizabeth Warren and various bloggers and writers. Most of it was what you'd expect, but Warren did mention that Rep. Barney Frank once told her that getting a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was a "pipe dream."

I think some people will see that as a mark against Frank, but he was right, at least judging by Washington's record over the previous 20 or 30 years. In fact, a lot of the Obama administration's accomplishments were pipe dreams.

A near-universal health-care system? Why would Obama and the Democrats succeed when Truman, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton had all failed, and politicians as adept as FDR and LBJ refused to even make the attempt? They've seen the numbers, right? The health-care industry is bigger now, and richer, and there are no more liberal Republicans. There's no way.

A $787 billion stimulus? Yes, it was too small. But everything Washington does is always too small. And within the confines of that stimulus, the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress managed to make a host of long-term investments that would've been considered huge accomplishments in any other context, but are largely unknown inside this one. Huge investments in green energy, in health information technology, in high-speed rail, in universal broadband, in medical research, in infrastructure. The Making Work Pay tax cut. The Race to the Top education reform program. No recent president has invested in the country on anything like that level.

The fact of financial reform is less impressive given the fact of the financial crisis, and readers know that I'm skeptical about the final design of the bill. But the consumer protection agency really is an important addition that might not have been included if the White House was occupied by a different team.

There are the smaller items that, in any other administration, would be seen as achievements. Menu labeling in chain restaurants. The Independent Payment Advisory Board to bring down Medicare costs. Ted Kennedy's SERVE America Act.

And then there's what didn't happen: The financial system didn't collapse. Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke and George W. Bush deserve some of the credit for that -- though they also deserve some of the blame for not preventing the crisis in the first place. But as Ben Smith says, TARP, which was begun by Bush and implemented by Obama, is probably one of the most successful policies in American history -- and it's also one of the least popular.

The Obama administration is also unpopular, though still more popular than the Democrats or Republicans in Congress. Many of its achievements -- notably health-care reform and the stimulus -- are similarly unpopular. That makes it difficult for the administration to run the midterm campaign that would've been the natural extension of this record: We have fulfilled almost all of the major promises we made in the 2008 election, and we're the most accomplished White House in a generation.

Those things are true, of course. And I think that the labor market will eventually recover, and the health-care reform plan will cover 32 million people and make the system better and more secure for a lot of people beyond that, and Obama, like Reagan before him, will be considered an extremely successful president despite struggling with his popularity in the early years of his first term. But for now, that kind of popularity is, well, a pipe dream. And the Obama administration is left running on exactly the record it hoped and promised to have in 2008, but without the level of economic recovery and thus popularity that would've helped convince the American people to deliver a favorable initial review.

I disagree with him about the Financial Regulation (I actually liked it, and liked the attempt), but that's just me.

"Things said by Elizabeth Warren tend to be more interesting than things said about Elizabeth Warren..." (VIDEO)

Fine, this is the President talking about Elizabeth Warren. Still, the man's got to introduce her.

From President Obama's prepared remarks:

I have known Elizabeth Warren since law school. She’s a native of Oklahoma. She’s a janitor’s daughter who has become one of the country’s fiercest advocates for the middle class. She has seen financial struggles and foreclosures affect her own family.

Long before this crisis hit, she had written eloquently, passionately, forcefully, about the growing financial pressures on working families and the need to put in place stronger consumer protections. And three years ago she came up with an idea for a new independent agency that would have one simple overriding mission: standing up for consumers and middle-class families.

Thanks to Elizabeth’s efforts, as well as the dedication and persistence of the person to my right, Secretary of Treasury Geithner, as well as leaders in Congress like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, that agency will soon become a reality.

And we got to hear from Elizabeth Warren herself:

President Obama understands the importance of leveling the playing field again for families and creating protections that work not just for the wealthy or connected, but for every American. The new consumer bureau is based on a pretty simple idea: people ought to be able to read their credit card and mortgage contracts and know the deal. They shouldn’t learn about an unfair rule or practice only when it bites them—way too late for them to do anything about it. The new law creates a chance to put a tough cop on the beat and provide real accountability and oversight of the consumer credit market. The time for hiding tricks and traps in the fine print is over. This new bureau is based on the simple idea that if the playing field is level and families can see what’s going on, they will have better tools to make better choices.

This is the best part of Elizabeth Warren taking on the special advisory role. She gets to set up the CFPB. She gets to pick the staff. And because she's not going through Senate confirmation, she gets to start talking to the American people about the CFPB right now, and not go into the cone of silence that apparently Senator Dodd demands.

Liberals seem very happy about even this temporary appointment, because I think they have a better job for her in mind.

Of course, as Ezra Klein says: "things said by Elizabeth Warren tend to be more interesting than things said about Elizabeth Warren."


Elizabeth Warren on Consumer Protection (MMBM) from Roosevelt Institute on Vimeo.

Video taken from the Make Markets Be Markets conference, March 3, 2010, New York City.

On Warren, "It's always nice to see someone rewarded for being right, for a change."

Wow.  Lotsa Rachel Maddow tonight.

In addition to the interview with the Vice-President, Rachel also covered the President's Tax speech, and Elizabeth Warren's appointment with Chris Hayes.

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I hope Josh and Matt were paying attention to this.

Elizabeth Warren is doing exactly what, again??

Jake Tapper over at ABC has apparently gotten himself a bit of a scoop:

President Obama will announce this week that Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor who first proposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will be named to a special position reporting to both him and to the Treasury Department and tasked with heading the effort to get the new federal agency standing, a knowledgeable Democrat told ABC News.

A Democratic Senator I used to have some respect for has been going out of his friggin' way to trash a potential Warren nomination with virtually every last breath he takes while still in office:

Outgoing Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) warned Tuesday that an interim appointment of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau "jeopardizes the existence" of the nascent agency.

The White House is considering naming Warren interim head, as the law establishing the CFPB allows, in order to get her into place immediately and head off a Senate filibuster of her nomination. Once she's in place, Obama could nominate her for the permanent position.

"I'm not enthusiastic about that and I think it'll be met with a lot of opposition," Dodd told reporters after coming off the Senate floor.

Dodd said that an interim appointment would deprive the director of the legitimacy that comes with Senate confirmation. He added that such an appointment could create a backlash that would lead Congress to defund the bureau.

"This is a big job, an important job, and it needs to be -- you've got to build the support for that institutionally or the next Congress - and none of us know what the outcome's going to be politically -- you could gut this before it even gets off the ground. If you don't have someone running it early on, it jeopardizes the existence of the consumer protection bureau," he said. Asked how Congress would gut it, he said: "Money. Take away the money. That's how you always do it."

What? Does he want the job himself? Beats Bank Lobbying, I suppose. I'll never understand why he's so focused on pissing all over this nomination. Needless to say, I won't miss Dodd when he's gone.

Needless to say, Josh Marshall (at TPM) is confused:

We're seeking more clarification now, but it sounds like the White House has decided that instead of nominating Warren to head up the new consumer financial protection bureau, or alternatively avoiding the confirmation process and appointing her as interim director, the President will take a third way and make her a special adviser to help set the bureau up.

And Matthew Yglesias (at Think Progress) tweeted this, apparently pissed off:

With Warren, Obama showing real innovation in developing odd, satisfying to nobody compromises.

The Elizabeth Warren P.R. Firm of Huffington Post is spiking the ball like they...say...scored the only touchdown in the Dallas-Washington Game from Sunday night.

The White House has tapped Elizabeth Warren as a special adviser to help set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ABC News is reporting. The move allows her to act as an interim head of the CFPB and will enable her to begin setting up the agency immediately and prevent the GOP from filibustering her nomination. Warren could serve until Obama nominates a permanent director -- a nomination he's not required to make for some time. Obama could also nominate her as the permanent director in the near future, a prospect that has been discussed among top aides, according to a person familiar with the White House deliberations. Warren will also be named as a special adviser directly to Obama, ABC reported.

(I hate to rub it in Cowboys fans, but I am like that).

But this is why you've got to read the whole piece. Josh and Matt didn't horn in on the last part of Jake's story which said:

Naming Warren as an assistant or counselor to both the president and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would allow the president to bypass a Senate confirmation process that could prove lengthy and contentious.

“I’m concerned about all Senate confirmations these days” including if he were to “nominate somebody for dog catcher,” the president said Friday when asked if he was concerned about Warren’s ability to be confirmed. “I’ve got people who have been waiting for six months to get confirmed who nobody has an official objection to and who were voted out of committee unanimously, and I can’t get a vote on them.”

Since nominees facing the confirmation process also enter a period of public silence, avoiding the confirmation process would also allow Warren to publicly discuss the agency and its benefits, which the president is eager for her to do.

Truth be told, this sounds exactly like the Interim posting story that we've been hearing about all week. So finally, allow me to fire up the wayback machine from the distant past of Tuesday, and quote, myself:

He appoints Elizabeth Warren to the position on an Interim basis. If the Senate continues to act like...you know...the Senate...and resists her nomination, we get both the benefit of a fight where Republicans are tarnished as people against protecting consumers, and she gets to do her job in the meantime.

Excellent.

TPM: False Alarm.

On Elizabeth Warren.  Never mind.  Everyone's walking it back now.

Of course, the original reportage came from Fox News.

I still think it's going to be her, though.

It's Elizabeth Warren...

Looks like she wanted it after all.

I think the reasons highlighted on September 10th (mostly through Noam Scheiber's excellent work) came to pass, but there's no absolute proof of this.  Just a hunch.

Now understand, she's being named Interim Head of the Consumer Protection Bureau. This is key.

Because the Senate can't get its act together, and pass the large number of other appointments waiting on their desk because of Republican obstructionism, the President has taken on a new tactic.

He appoints Elizabeth Warren to the position on an Interim basis.  If the Senate continues to act like...you know...the Senate...and resists her nomination, we get both the benefit of a fight where Republicans are tarnished as people against protecting consumers, and she gets to do her job in the meantime.

Excellent.

Time to start throwing knuckleballs high and inside. If someone gets hit, tough @#$!!

(Yeah, that was a Baseball reference. It means that...never mind.)

Anyway, I'm glad she got the job. I'm glad she wanted the job. I think this is a good thing for America.

Maybe it will be Elizabeth Warren after all...

Remember, not so long ago, when I wrote this?:

I think she's the best choice. I would prefer it be her, though I have no idea of her capacities as an Administrator (a suitable No. 2 can be hired for that). With Christina Romer leaving the Council of Economic Advisers, there's a serious girl shortage on the Obama Econ team, and Prof. Warren would fill in that role nicely (or at the Fed).

Either way, Warren not getting this job is not the end of the freaking world. (Plus, she may want to go back to Harvard. Anyone consider that??)

Well...

It looks like she ain't goin' back to Harvard.

This from Ezra Klein:

Elizabeth Warren is the frontrunner to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She's also, however, a professor at Harvard Law School, which isn't very compatible with taking a full-time job in Washington. Something's going to have to give. And if this e-mail Brady Dennis obtained is any indication, it's not Warren's political ambitions:

When fall classes began Wednesday at Harvard Law School, Elizabeth Warren was scheduled to be teaching contract law to first-year students. But something happened on the way to the chalkboard.

"I'm writing to let you know that Professor Jerry Frug will be teaching your Contracts class this term instead of Professor Elizabeth Warren," law school dean Martha Minow wrote to students on Tuesday, according to an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post. "Professor Warren regrets that she will not be able to teach you this fall and we regret the last minute change."

Last-minute change?

I'd also note that as the election outlook grows grimmer for the Democrats, the White House seems to be picking a new fight on jobs. I wouldn't be shocked if they decided to pick one on consumer protections, as well.

Fingers crossed.

More Elizabeth Warren.

Ezra Klein, following up on the possibility of appointing Elizabeth Warren to head Consumer Protection Agency. ( You should be familiar with it.  It's not like we haven't been covering it).

Elizabeth Warren fans and Elizabeth Warren foes will both want to read Brady Dennis's profile of the consumer-protection advocate. To make the political point, it seems to me that the importance of Warren's nomination is being dramatically overblown. And that seems great for the administration.

I'd prefer to see Warren appointed, but it's hard to be incredibly confident about something as unpredictable as agency leadership. Think of it this way: You're a credit-card industry trade group and you're given two choices to lead the consumer protection agency: The first is an aggressive, charismatic and media-savvy regulator who seems likely to clash with the administration and thus is likely to lose some important bureaucratic battles. The other is a less charismatic and media-savvy regulator who is still substantively aggressive, skeptical of your business, but who has great internal administration relationships and seems likely to win a lot of internal battles on behalf of the agency. Who would you pick? The answer isn't obvious to me.

But the elevation of the Warren appointment into a major priority for liberals gives the administration something easy they can hand to their base. It's not like the public option, which seemed capable of sinking the health-care bill. Financial regulation has already passed. If Warren runs into Republican opposition in the Senate, then all the better: All eyes will focus on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and since the administration believes it hasn't gotten enough credit for financial regulation and also believes the CFPB is the most popular part of the bill, that's a gift for them -- particularly so close to the election.

It's of course possible that Republicans will filibuster her nomination and Democrats won't be able to break their hold. But so what? In that case, Warren will either be recess appointed or replaced. Which is why, at this point, it seems pretty likely that Warren will be appointed. If she's not, I think it'll be substantive fears -- there are those who think she's much too skeptical of financial products and her presence will chill lenders at a time when we want them to start pushing money out again -- not political concerns, that derail her. But given that the administration can't actually say "we believe Warren will protect consumers too much," it'll be hard for them to act on that concern.

One last point: It's worth taking a moment and marveling at how much one well-crafted policy proposal published in a little-read journal can lead to.

I still think she's the best candidate, but there are others out there. It's not a disaster if she's not appointed. But Ezra may be right, the fight may be worth it.

What really happened with Elizabeth Warren today

Everyone's was all (ha-ha) a-Twitter over the Elizabeth Warren sighting at the White House. But before you start jumping for joy over this development:

Warren's Congressional Oversight Panel released a new report today saying – unsurprisingly – that foreign firms benefited more from the $700 billion US bank bailout than US firms benefited from foreign rescue efforts.

The watchdog cited that the US bailout basically flooded money into as many banks as possible – including international ones – but other nations specifically targeted their rescue efforts towards their own domestic firms that had no US operations.

“As a result, it appears likely that America’s financial rescue had a much greater impact internationally than other nations’ programs had on the United States,” the panel said. “This outcome was likely inevitable given the structure of the TARP, but if the US government had gathered more information about which countries’ institutions would most benefit from some of its actions, it might have been able to ask those countries to share the pain of rescue.”

The most egregious case? AIG, naturally, where tens of billions of US taxpayer dollars went to Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale, among others. The US bore the entire $70 billion risk of the insurance giant’s capital injection program, far exceeding the size of France’s entire $35 billion overall stability program and nearly half the size of Germany’s $133 billion efforts.

Going forward, the panel said, an international plan should be developed to “handle the collapse of major, globally significant financial institutions.”

And now, before you get too depressed, the same Jake Tapper report also said:

Elizabeth Warren this afternoon met at the White House with David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, where the possibility of her heading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was discussed, but not decided on, a White House official confirms.

President Obama did not meet with Warren today.

“The President believes that Elizabeth Warren is a champion for middle class families and consumers and she, among others, is a strong contender for this position,” White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement. “The President has not yet made a decision and no announcement is imminent.”

This week White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton echoed those sentiments during a press gaggle en route to Texas, saying that he has no update on timing beyond that an announcement wouldn’t be made this week. And Burton also downplayed the notion that Elizabeth Warren would be hard to confirm on the Hill, should she be the nominee.

“A lot of folks have opinions about Elizabeth Warren and other candidates,” Burton said Monday. “It’s the White House’s view that Elizabeth Warren would be confirmable.”

In effect, I reversed the priorities given in the Jake Tapper piece. (Kinda makes you think twice about the importance of the story. It did for me.)

What I think has honestly happened was that the Warren Commission was meeting anyway, so David and Valerie took a moment to feel her out on becoming head of the Consumer Protection Agency.

The time to get excited is when she meets with the President. That hasn't happened yet.

Again, I think she's the best choice. I would prefer it be her, though I have no idea of her capacities as an Administrator (a suitable No. 2 can be hired for that). With Christina Romer leaving the Council of Economic Advisers, there's a serious girl shortage on the Obama Econ team, and Prof. Warren would fill in that role nicely (or at the Fed).

Either way, Warren not getting this job is not the end of the freaking world. (Plus, she may want to go back to Harvard. Anyone consider that??)

Six things happening on Financial Regulation

Back to business.

ProPublica has a fantastic piece on all the moving parts, regulations and discussions that are forming around the Financial Regulation Bill.

Here are some of the subheaders (which should give you a taste):

• Regulators discuss how to shift away from reliance on credit rating agencies.  (Always a good thing.)
  
• The FDIC is restructuring.  (Ditto)
  
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is still headless.  (This should be temporary.)
  
• The big banks are contemplating the most profitable way to comply with the Volcker Rule.  (Are you surprised?)
  
• Oil companies don't like the part of financial reform that affects them.  (See note above.)
  
• A Congressional committee will take another look at the SEC FOIA exemption.  (Interesting read.  FoxBusiness is involved, and not necessarily the bad guy for one.)

Of course, the devil is in the details, and that's why you should read the ProPublica piece.

"The Stupidity of Liberal Apathy"

I've started to describe myself in recent months as a Liberal who hates other Liberals.

Thus, Jonathan Cohn's piece in the New Republic sums up my feelings perfectly (posted here in its entirety):

Activists at last week’s Netroots Nation talked about disappointment and disillusionment. The polls show a slow, steady decline in support for the president among Democrats. Neither sample captures perfectly the state of the liberal mind this summer, but you’d have to be pretty oblivious not to see that President Obama, and the Democrats, are losing the love of their base.

It’s a somewhat predictable decline, given lofty expectations for the Obama presidency and the stubbornly slow recovery. It's also a relatively modest decline: After all, it’s not like anybody is talking about starting a third party. Still, the right is energized, the left is ambivalent, and that means Democrats are in big trouble this November.

If you read this blog, then you know I see things more or less the way my colleague Jonathan Chait and some of our friends in the blogosphere do: This seems totally nuts, purely on the merits. Obama and the Democrats passed a major stimulus that cut taxes for the middle class and invested heavily in public works. They saved the auto industry, created a new regulatory framework for the financial industry, and enacted comprehensive health care reform. Compromises watered down each of these initiatives, to say nothing of the ideas (climate change!) that aren’t going to pass. And still this was the most productive liberal presidency in a generation or maybe two.

But liberal ambivalence isn't just foolish substantively. It's also foolish strategically.

The fact is that voting for these measures, particularly health care and (in the House) climate change, was tough for many members of Congress. Liberals consider the Affordable Care Act a watered-down version of a watered-down of something resembling a true universal coverage system. But in Tennessee, Idaho, and a bunch of places in between, it's a government takeover of health care. Liberals think Waxman-Markey was a conservative half-solution to a planetary crisis. In more conservative districts--and, let's face it, plenty of liberal ones too--it's higher energy bills.

But consider what happened after the climate change vote in the House last year. When Democrats went back to their districts, conservatives pummeled them--in person and on the air--while liberals just shrugged. And consider what happened after the health care bill passed: Conservatives went into overdrive about socialized medicine, while liberals kept talking about what a lousy bill it was.

Not surprisingly, members from more conservative parts of the country are pretty frustrated, particularly when they're getting attacked directly by the left. As one senior Democratic aide told me on Wednesday, expressing a sentiment I've heard many times on Capitol Hill:

Liberals have savaged these members and the lesson many will take is don’t stick your neck out because the left will kick your ass regardless.

To be clear, sometimes ass-kicking is good. Call Kent Conrad a hypocrite on the deficit. Blast Joe Lieberman for carrying water on behalf of the insurance industry. Hold Obama accountable for the bureaucratic neglect that enabled the Gulf disaster. Liberals won't get anywhere by meekly accepting every compromise that comes down the pike or looking the other way when Democrats screw up. Politics goes is a two-way street and liberals need their leaders to lead sometimes.

But if the left is going to demand action, it has to do more than shrug when action--even modest action--actually happens. They have to show some enthusiasm, if not locally then at least nationally. (Truth be told, a member in a Republican plus-three district probably benefits more from higher Obama approval ratings than an ad buy from Moveon.org). Otherwise office-holders, even ones from relatively liberal districts, won't have much incentive to vote liberal next time around. As another congressional aide told me, via email:

I hear this stuff all the time, about climate change, health reform, financial reform--members complaining about having to vote for these things because they were forced to by party leadership with NO upside for them. ... They’re getting hit on all sides. ... these members need more than just the stick, you also have to give them the carrot every once in a while.

It'd be nice if we lived in a world where politicians voted based on the public interest. But we happen to live in a world where, to varying degrees, politicians vote based on their immediate electoral needs. If liberals don't embrace politicians who vote with them today, then liberals can't expect the same politicians, or their replacements, to vote with them tomorrow.

The Fireside chat for July 24, 2010 (VIDEO)

The framing begins...



Following the signing of historic Wall Street Reform legislation, the President contrasts his economic plan focused on the middle class and moving America forward with the Republican plan focused on the very wealthiest Americans and moving us backward.