It’s not just Michael Moore who has a huge crush on Elizabeth Warren. It’s me too.
I first heard Elizabeth Warren in the documentary Maxed Out, which will simultaneously blow your mind and make you cry. Those are qualities I dig in a documentary.
After the economy exploded, she was made the chair of TARP. Later she was appointed a Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of the Presidency.
As Ari Berman from The Nation says in his recent article, “Warren is a major celebrity in Washington, an Oklahoma-born Harvard law professor who’s done more than anyone since Ralph Nader to put consumer protection on the national agenda.”
Her baby, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is currently under attack in Congress.
The idea for the CFPB came out of an article Warren wrote in Democracy, which has the tag line “If it’s good enough for microwaves, it’s good enough for mortgages.” She begins with this analogy:
It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street–and the mortgage won’t even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner. Similarly, it’s impossible to change the price on a toaster once it has been purchased. But long after the papers have been signed, it is possible to triple the price of the credit used to finance the purchase of that appliance, even if the customer meets all the credit terms, in full and on time. Why are consumers safe when they purchase tangible consumer products with cash, but when they sign up for routine financial products like mortgages and credit cards they are left at the mercy of their creditors?
The Nation has a great podcast about her and how the Republicans are trying to block her baby, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
It looks like you don’t have Adobe Flash Player installed. Get it now.
Learn more about this amazing populist, Harvard professor from Oklahoma: