Elizabeth Warren
Brooksley Born
Sheila Bair
Iris Mack
and more.

“Elizabeth Warren, in charge of oversight of the financial industry bailout, told a congressional panel Tuesday that the Treasury Department has not been cooperating with her efforts to oversee the project.

“We do not seem to be a priority for the Treasury Department,” said Warren.

She added that the administration’s failure to ask for more accountability has led to a situation that is difficult to oversee. “This problem starts with Treasury,” she said.

Warren is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee.
Warren argued that “continuous subsidization without vigorous oversight is exactly what got us into this.” She complimented the administration’s oversight of the auto industry, but contrasted it with the lack of the same with regard to the banks.”

Recently ran across some information on Nancy Folbre, PhD. She describes herself as a feminist economist. Has done some impressive things and written a number of books–The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values, Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family, and others.

Sat next to a government person on a plane recently. Apparently there are many jobs available that haven’t been filled right below the top jobs (i.e., cabinet positions)in many government departments. What if we could mobilize women to fill these positions?

Disagree. Appointing the fox to guard the chicken coop is always improper. That the guard is well known to be a fox means that 1) the offense is even more in-your-face outrageous, and 2) the people who had the means to stop it are both negligent and stupid.

Kudos to The New Agenda for its past and ongoing efforts to dislodge this scoundrel from positions of power.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....83291.html

“Elizabeth Warren’s the chief watchdog for the 700 billion TARP fund. Unfortunately, she has no real power, but it’s still nice to see a government official say not just some of the right things, but almost all of the right things.
She also calls for the resignation of the CEOs of the worst firms.
I don’t have much hope any of this will occur. Warren’s not part of the boys club of Summers, Geithner, Bernanke and Obama who’s making the decisions. But one can hope…”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/busi.....regulators
Warren also believes there are “dangers inherent” in the approach taken by treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who she says has offered “open-ended subsidies” to some of the world’s biggest financial institutions without adequately weighing potential pitfalls. “We want to ensure that the treasury gives the public an alternative approach,” she said, adding that she was worried that banks would not recover while they were being fed subsidies. “When are they going to say, enough?” she said.
She said she did not want to be too hard on Geithner but that he must address the issues in the report. “The very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding changes in management is preposterous.”

“In a thoughtful article in the latest edition of The Atlantic magazine, former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson argues U.S. policy has been controlled for the past two decades by a “financial oligarchy” which exercises influence through campaign contributions and the regular exchange of top personnel between Wall Street firms and the White House, Treasury and other institutions meant to regulate them. It promotes an identity of views between the regulators and the regulated (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice).

The disclosure of Summers’ earnings simply fuels that impression, and the administration’s decision to publish the disclosure forms on a Friday afternoon shows awareness of the embarrassing appearance of business as usual for an administration that came to power promising “change we can believe in.”

No one is accusing Summers or other senior officials of impropriety. His deep involvement with Wall Street was known at the time of his appointment and the fees were all earned before he accepted a position. But with his highly quantitative approach, assumption the solution to most problems is a market-based one, plus instinctive hostility to most forms of regulation, Summers epitomizes the financial revolution that so visibly failed in 2008. He is a leading exponent of the ancien regime. It is hard to imagine he will really press for significant reform in the months and years ahead.

If the president wants more funding from Congress, and to demonstrate he is serious about changing the way Wall Street works, he needs to broaden his circle of advisers.

The president is not short of advice. But he needs to reach out beyond the tight circle of Summers-Geithner-Rubin-Gensler to consider alternative views, then have the courage to trust his reformist instincts rather than the status quo views of the Wall Street-Washington establishment.”

Time for a woman to be appointed! How about Laura Tyson?