Payday Pundit » Elizabeth Warren

Too much information

Payday Pundit — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:47:30 +0000

Elizabeth Warren is pretty frugal. From the story:

“If Elizabeth Warren offers you a cup of tea, don’t accept,” Johnson writes in a profile (appearing in the magazine’s January issue) of the woman President Obama has tapped to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In the feature, Johnson notes that while she too has been known to “pinch a penny,” she was still surprised when Warren pulled an already-used tea bag out of her desk drawer.

Warren laughed off the moment in the magazine: “I just can’t stand the waste of throwing out a tea bag after one use. It’s like a knife in the gut for me.”

A Republican agenda

Payday Pundit — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:43:57 +0000

The American Thinker does some deep thinking:

These committee chairmen can also help stop the Obama agenda. By calling hearings and issuing subpoenas for officials to testify, a chairman can tie up the working day for this czar or that czarina. One witness who might be hauled before House committees is Elizabeth Warren, who circumvented the Senate confirmation process when she was named as the “special adviser” to a brand new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Her appointment elicited howls of protest from Republicans, given her left-wing views and the powers of this new agency. Now their howls will be heard.

Time “Person who mattered”

Payday Pundit — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:29:20 +0000

It’s a consolation prize for not being “Person of the Year.” From the story:

In early 2010, the Harvard Law Professor emerged on The Daily Show and on the cover of TIME, as one of the experts leading the charge for financial reform. In mid-July, the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill passed along with a provision to create a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an idea Warren first proposed three years earlier.

Time Person of the Year

Payday Pundit — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:10:01 +0000

We reported a couple of day ago that Elizabeth Warren was under consideration. However, it’s going to be Mark Zuckerberg.

Time’s “Person of the Year”?

Payday Pundit — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:39:30 +0000

Elizabeth Warren is in the running.

She’s not talking about us

Payday Pundit — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:37:49 +0000

Elizabeth Warren sat down with The Washington Post and said this:

“There are a lot of financial institutions that make their money by keeping products confusing so the price isn’t clear until it’s way too late,” Warren told me. “They make money by concealing risk, which means that people can’t compare the products head to head.”

The cost of payday loans, of course, is fully disclosed. And consumers understand the comparison with competing products such as overdraft protection and bounced check fees.

“Like building an airplane”

Payday Pundit — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:57:32 +0000

Elizabeth Warren gives an interview to American Public Media’s “Marketplace” show. You can read or listen here.

Elizabeth Warren’s deputies

Payday Pundit — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:54:05 +0000

The state AGs have been sworn in so to speak. From the story:

The attorneys general say they now talk with Warren regularly as she sets up the new bureau. On Nov. 30, Warren traveled to Fort Lauderdale to plot strategy at the prosecutors’ winter meeting. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper says she has sought the AGs’ help in forming new policies for mortgages and credit cards, her priorities. “We are the initial portal of complaints from consumers, and we can react more quickly than a federal agency,” says Cooper, a Democrat.

Making costs and risks clearer

Payday Pundit — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:45:12 +0000

Elizabeth Warren answers five questions from BusinessInsider:

4) You’ve spoken a lot about how the consumer credit market is “broken.” How do we know the market isn’t working and what can the CFPB do to fix it?

When a family cannot tell the cost in full of a credit card, when it is not possible to determine the risks of a mortgage in advance, and when people can’t directly compare three or four products– apples to apples – to tell which costs the most and which bears the most risk, then the market is broken.

This agency will drive toward making the costs clear, making the risks clear, and making it easy for consumers to compare one product with another. When they can do that, credit markets will work for families.

5) What roles will personal responsibility and financial education play in the consumer credit market once the CFPB is stood up?

I believe in personal responsibility, but it only works when prices and risks are clear up front and not buried in pages and pages of incomprehensible fine print. But, I also believe in American families. When they have better information they will make good decisions and those good decisions will make families stronger and ultimately will make the entire economy stronger.

Not going to happen

Payday Pundit — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:57:28 +0000

Some people are hoping that Elizabeth Warren will run against Obama in a primary. This is delusional.