“Enough is enough”
by Tom Sullivan
After #TortureTuesday, I needed a break from thinking about rectal rehydration.
Here’s a link to video of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s keynote address to the “Managing the Economy” conference this week in Washington, D.C. The event was sponsored by Americans for Financial Reform, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Roosevelt Institute. (sorry, no embed; transcript here)
The speech is being called Warren’s sharpest rebuke to date of President Obama’s nomination of investment banker Antonio Weiss for Treasury’s undersecretary of domestic finance. It is another example of “the revolving door at its most dangerous” between Washington and Wall Street, Warren believes, and for a nominee unqualified for the job and from an industry already overrepresented in Washington. The Boston Globe cites an unnamed Treasury official as being unaware of “any prominent Wall Street officials currently serving at the department.”
While Warren spoke alone, she cited her own exprts.
Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin on Weiss’ qualifications:
“The shock of Mr. Weiss’s supporters that anyone would dare question his suitability reflects an unspoken assumption that anyone from Wall Street is of course expert in all things financial. That’s hooey.”
Quoting Sheila Bair, former head of the FDIC (a Republican) on the $20 million golden parachute from Weiss’ employer that supporters justify as necessary to induce Wall St. executives to serve in public policy positions:
[She] responded that “only in the Wonderland of Wall Street logic could one argue that this looks like anything other than a bribe.” End Quote. She went on: “We want people entering public service because they want to serve the public. Frankly, if they need a $20 million incentive, I’d rather they stay away.”
Warren concludes her case against the revolving door:
This is about building some counterpressure on the Wall Street bankers. Members of Congress, their staffs, and the regulatory agencies are going to hear the Wall Street perspective loud and clear, each and every minute of each and every day. That isn’t going to change. But we need a real mix of people in the room when decisions are made. When the President has an opportunity to decide who will be at the financial decision making table, he should think about who knows about the economics of job creation, about community banks and access to financing for small businesses, about who has the skills and determination to make sure that the biggest banks can’t take down our economy again.
The titans of Wall Street have succeeded in pushing government policies that made the megabanks rich beyond imagination, while leaving working families to struggle from payday to payday. So long as the revolving door keeps spinning, government policies will favor Wall Street over Main Street. I hope you‘ll all join me in saying “enough is enough.”
I guess she didn’t take Larry Summers’ advice.