Indications are, the answer is a big fat no.
There's a fantastic interview with Elizabeth Warren by former FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair in the latest edition of Fortune magazine. I used to read Fortune regularly (though not recently) and always found it an intelligent expression of the business perspective, a sane and informed example of the business-focused Republican worldview.
The interview mostly got traction for the fact that Warren came out and said she wouldn't run in 2016. But there was much, much more to it.
The interview was a great opportunity for Warren to present her own liberal and populist worldview in a way that was appealing to the average business person, and (in my opinion) she hit it out of the park.
Here are a few samples of what she had to say:
On the repeal of Dodd-Frank and the unfairness that causes to other, mostly smaller businesses:
I’m madder than hops about repealing the section of Dodd-Frank that is designed to lower risks in exactly the area where the big banks got into trouble. And now we are putting taxpayers back on the hook. They want to take all the profits, but tag the taxpayer with the losses....
If I were running a competing investment bank that was doing business without deposit insurance, I’d be even madder. These big banks don’t have to compete on a level playing field. I have talked to a lot of nonbank financial players – investment banks, hedge funds –they have to compete for capital on their own. They have to convince their investors to be willing to accept the risks. They have to provide a rate of return to their investors that compensates for those risks. They don’t like competing with a half dozen large financial institutions who enjoy the benefits of deposit insurance and too-big-to-fail status....
Everyone else in the system has to compete for capital against a sector that has a special deal from the government.
On regulatory capture and monopolies, and their deleterious effects on democracy:
You know, when I was in law school, they taught us that monopolies were wrong because they hurt price competition. They were a market failure that hurt consumers, and that of course, was true. So you needed to break them up. But if you read Teddy Roosevelt on this – his principle push for breaking up the trusts was because they had too much political power. They overwhelmed the government. It wasn’t so much that they were stronger than government, but they could persuade government to shift the rules to make themselves even more powerful. And when that happens, it’s not just a threat to the economy. It’s a threat to democracy.
This is part of what we are starting to wrestle with. I look at the way regulators kowtowed to big financial institutions in the run up to the crisis. It was a complete failure not only of markets, but also of government. Government didn’t work the way it should.
On excessive complexity in rule-making, and how it hurts the average business:
[B]anking is not that hard to understand. They try to make it complicated because they can hide what’s going on. It’s a way to back everyone else off from having real oversight about what’s happening....
I believe in small and simple rules. I’m not a fan of the big, complex rules. Complexity is a way to hide the loopholes the special deals. It’s also a way to tilt the playing field toward the big guys. Small companies, start ups, new competitors just get shut out of a complex system. Tell some group that has a new way to deliver financial services to consumers—and they find out it’s going to cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees just to find out if they can make money, much less the costs of all the licensing, vetting that it will take if the decide they want to launch a new business.
On the tax code, and who it's been written to benefit:
Wage earners and small businesses and entrepreneurs are powerfully disadvantaged under the current tax code.
Let me tell you a story. When I was campaigning for Senate, I would walk into a bar, cafe, or retail store, and I would often hear small business owners say that they are Republican because they are worried about taxes. They weren’t sure about me. And I would ask them, you know, you are right. You should be worried about taxes. Now tell me, how much money do you have in the Cayman Islands? Did you move your intellectual property to Europe? How many tax deals have you done? And of course, the answer would always be no, no, and no. The point was that small businesses are carrying full freight. The loopholes are written for the big guys. The only ones who are paying full freight are the little guys.
Anyway, lots of good stuff. Go and read
the interview.
After all that, I was interested to see the comments, to see how the Fortune readership responded to her very well made points. Perhaps they might be wary, after a generation of listening to right-wing propaganda saying Democrats are against business and want to destroy business owners, but there was a lot of substantive material in what she said that should engage them.
Right?
Well, no.
The comments section was pretty much a teeming pit of screeching flying monkeys flinging poop. (It's doubtful to me if most of them even read the interview. Or could.)
Below is a representative sampling of Fortune magazine reader comments on Elizabeth Warren's very well expressed outreach to a business audience:
This woman is a certified moon bat.
After the speech she made in Boston I am wondering if she isn't mentally ill. Why else would anyone be telling blacks that we are trying to stop them from voting and trying to keep them from getting an education and that they have to fight us? I am trying to decide if she is a phony, or just nuts?
Scary Mary.
Sheila, you are just patronizing her. You know what she is.
I don't agree with her politics- too liberal, but I have heard her speak and she can present her ideas as clearly and directly as any democrat I have ever heard. Believe it when I say that I vote republican on most issues. Warren has that intangible quality of being interesting and in many ways charismatic. She could be a formidable candidate - we 'd do well watch her and to take her seriously.
So you think Warren is right and things would be rosy if banks and corporate taxes were higher? That's all that needs to be done, along with the typical talking point of building infrastructure and investing more in schools? Haven't we heard that from every democrat for too long?
Put more money into failed schools…where teachers can't be fired and students come from homes with no accountability living on off of other people's money and you're doomed to failure regardless of how much money you pour in!
Make colleges more accountable…to the government? That will make everything rosy? What about the government getting out of the student loan market? Then colleges would be forced to compete for every penny they were given…free market? What a concept!
this is one stupid woman - followed her antics when before she hit the big league
Our problem with education is not throw more money at it....we'ed be better off sending our younger kids to Japan or China to learn. Their students are way smarter than our teachers. This is what the liberals have always wanted. Dumb
down the people to the point where they have to have goveerment to make it.Warren is part of the problem not the answer
She whines but she was making 350,000 to teach one course at Harvard University so she was the problem.
I guess she couldn't find enough Indian blood in her.
Warren is just another example of an underachieving liberal who banks on the lack of inquisitiveness of people on the left to hoist her banner of inventive deceit. This is so typical of the lightweights presented by the liberals as candidates.
Warren, not to mention Hillary, has no ethical credibility to hold even the office she has now, much less President. If she can be believed, which is doubtful, thank God she's not running, not that she would spoil Billary's chances, but she'd just be one more joke in the lineup.
The administration has worked for placing us into a part time economy, lower income for working people and exploding the benefit/welfare/handout agenda. Many of these programs were put into place to boost up people who truly did have issues and needed assistance. Today, handouts come easily and frequently and expectedly. Why work when one can reap the benefits that "the rich" and more so the middle class pay taxes to support. Sorry, this does not float. Good to hear you are not running.
Well, there goes our shot at electing the 1st Native American President ... oh wait, that was BS?
Do you really think that that American people will listen to this liar anymore. You are both Communists, hell bent on destroying our country.
democrats have lied too much. there is no hope and change for the middle class? what a joke. count the top ten dems who have given any money to a worthy cause.......NONE
Lets see...She's a Native American in College and Jewish as a politician? Waiting for her to tell us she's a black lesbian running for President next. Would not believe her any more than I believe anything Hillarious Rotten Clinton has to say.
this lady is more liberal progressive nut job than the idiot we have in office now
Did Warren have or express any remorse in Obama Not sending anyone to France ? Did she express any sentiment in favor of France an those that died ? Did she ask or demand her Party to do anything ?
The answer to Everyone of those Questions is : NO !! Did Hillary ? NO !! what does this tell you about the women wanting to be President of this country ?
I can not even believe the media takes this loony bitch seriously.
Seriously ??? LMAO ... I wouldn't let Elizabeth Warren manage a do-it-yourself car wash let alone the country. It shows the intelligence of the people in Massachusetts having her as their senator. More LOL
I think the American people want Michelle in 2016
The American people want to see Michelle and Obama both HANGED on the WH front lawn!!!
THANK GOD......We do NOT need another LIBERAL MORON in the oval office, Ted Cruz is the man we need to undo ALL the damage Ovomit has caused!!!!!!
If you can not understand that reducing humanity to sociological caricatures is extreme, you are trying to be an apologist for this airhead.
Idiot (D) with no work wants more teacher unions and road worker unions.
As if $18,000,000,000,000.00+ in taxpayer debt wasn't enough. What a moron (D).
Choctaws call her LIE-A-WATHA (D) of the TELL-A-WHOPPAs (D)
Is it time yet to despair for the future of the country?