Tea leaf reading cont.
September 2, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)Elizabeth Warren was supposed to teach at Harvard this fall semester. The school announced a replacement teacher.
Accepting reality
September 1, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)Wall Street is coming around on Elizabeth Warren.
No announcement this week
August 31, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)From The Hill:
No announcements are expected this week on a replacement for a departing White House economic adviser or who will lead the consumer protection agency created under the new financial reform law.
Girding for Warren
August 31, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)From the New York Post:
Wall Street is preparing for a hurricane starting with the letter E, but it’s not Earl, it’s Elizabeth, as in Warren.
Bankers appear to be resigning themselves to a fate worse than tougher financial regulation: The hard-charging Harvard professor, who oversees TARP funding, seems a near-cinch to be named the nation’s consumer watchdog.
“At this point, it seems pretty clear that she’s going to get the nomination,” said one high-ranking bank official, noting that President Obama, who has been sliding in the polls, could use a Warren nomination as a rallying point.
Republicans warming to Warren
August 30, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)From the Wall Street Journal:
Could Elizabeth Warren’s outspokenness yet prove a plus? A whisper is that some Republicans are warming to Ms. Warren as the first consumer financial-affairs regulator over another candidate, Treasury Department Assistant Secretary Michael Barr. The thinking: Ms. Warren isn’t shy about speaking her mind, so banks would know what was coming. Some fear Mr. Barr would be more circumspect but end up hitting bankers with surprise initiatives. But all that could be moot. One idea doing the rounds in Washington is that President Obama might name Ms. Warren when Congress is out of session, avoiding a confirmation hearing until next year.
Unintended consequences cont.
August 28, 2010 | alternatives, federal legislation | Comments (0)Banks have found away around credit card reform rules. From the story:
Professional cards aren’t covered under the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, or Card Act for short. Among other things, the law prohibits issuers from controversial billing practices such as hair-trigger interest rate increases, shortened payment cycles and inactivity fees—but it doesn’t apply to professional cards (see table).
Until recently professional cards largely had been reserved for small-business owners or corporate executives. But since the Card Act was passed in March 2009, companies have been inundating ordinary consumers with applications. In the first quarter of 2010, issuers mailed out 47 million professional offers, a 256% increase from the same period last year, according to research firm Synovate.
What?
August 27, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (1)From the Wall Street Journal:
Is Barney Frank after Elizabeth Warren’s job? Frank is supporting Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection. But Alain Sherter reports that “Citing a source on the House Financial Services Committee “close to” Frank, who chairs the panel, bank analyst Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics says the Massachusetts Democrat is throwing his cudgel into the ring.” Frank denies this, though.
I doubt this. I don’t think the Chairman of the House Financiall Services Committee would settle for anything less than a cabinet secretary level job if he were to go into the administration.
Let’s read more tea leafs
August 26, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)From the Wall Street Journal:
White House advisor Valerie Jarrett is playing a central role in the Obama administration’s deliberations over whom to pick to run the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, two people familiar with the matter said.
Jarrett’s involvement could bode well for Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, considered a top candidate for the potential job. Jarrett and Warren have met multiple times in the last year and are considered to be close.
They lunched together on July 21, the day President Barack Obama signed the financial-overhaul bill into law. They met again at the White House a few weeks later, along with David Axelrod, another White House advisor.
But who’s she having lunch with today?
HuffPo can’t give it a rest
August 26, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)The Huffington Post’s campaign for Elizabeth Warren to head the BCFP continues:
In questioning Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy to lead a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd has repeatedly questioned whether Warren possesses the appropriate management experience to lead a large federal bureaucracy.
But it’s the first time Chairman Dodd has publicly raised such an issue when it came to evaluating presidential nominees to agency positions under the banking committee’s purview.
The rest of the piece is just railing about Dodd.
NPR discuess Warren fight
August 26, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)From the story:
MAIN STREET BRIGADE (Rappers): (Rapping) Elizabeth. Got, got, got a new sheriff. Warren. Got, got, got a new sheriff. Elizabeth. Got, got, got a new sheriff, Warren. Elizabeth Warren.
Ms. JULIA ROSEN (Online Political Director, Progressive Change Campaign Committee): I dont know about you, but I can’t remember a time when a position that needs to be confirmed by the Senate had a rap video in support of an individual.
HORSLEY: Julia Rosen’s group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, has collected more than 200,000 petition signatures for Warren, who also serves as a watchdog for the government’s bank bailout program.
The plainspoken Harvard law professor has become a folk hero for bank customers. And Rosen says it’ll be disappointing if Mr. Obama picks anyone else.
Ms. ROSEN: Elizabeth Warren has a proven record of standing up to Wall Street on behalf of the consumers. And the public is telling President Obama that she’s absolutely the best person for the job.
HORSLEY: Warren’s pioneering research into the causes of bankruptcy, and the financial traps that ordinary Americans fall into, made her a crusader for consumer protection. But it didnt make her any friends in the banking industry.
