Well, not really. It is more like piling up for her nomination as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). This is to further highlight why she is uniquely qualified to lead the CFPA, an idea she championed. Most of us all are familiar how awesome she is in her recent role as the head of the COP (Congressional Oversight Panel) which oversees TARP. Here is a classic which has been highlighted in any number of diaries and in comments :
http://www.youtube.com/...
Now for some interesting tidbits in her biography, specifically on her evolution as a consumer protection advocate.
This from a recent Rolling Stone profile.
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
First on her upbringing through tough times in Oklahama:
Her parents grew up during the Dust Bowl, and by the time Warren was born in 1949, "they were beaten down financially." Fleeced by a business partner, her father was forced into a series of tough, dead-end jobs. Traveling salesman. Maintenance man. He suffered a heart attack. They lost the family car. At age 16, Warren managed to earn a full-ride scholarship to George Washington University. Working as a summer associate on Wall Street, she saved enough money to get her teeth straightened. But while her own hard work paid off, her family continued to struggle. "My dad, my brothers, my mother – they're good people who said, 'I'll do my best. I'll get out there, and I'll make this work.' But they're also living proof that it's hard."
Then comes the part of her biography which is not widely known (or is it just me?)and struck me the most.She had a conservative streak in her when she went to law school:
Given her own bootstrap ethic, Warren began her academic career deeply skeptical of those she saw as taking the easy way out. As a young law professor in Texas in the early 1980s, she embarked on a research project on bankruptcy expecting to "expose deadbeats – people who take advantage of a too-generous legal system."
The reality, however proved to be otherwise.And her transformation began into the person we all know and have come to love.
But the data and the case files told a much different story. Warren discovered that most Americans who file for bankruptcy are hardworking folks who play by the rules – and wind up losing, through no fault of their own. They get sick. Their marriages hit the rocks. Their parents need nursing care. "These are my people," she says. "That, for me, was transformative."
And then she got to see in person the dirty tricks used by banks to fleece hapless borrowers:
The lesson was reinforced a decade later when Citibank invited Warren to propose ways to minimize its losses from cardholders in financial trouble. Warren had simple advice: When borrowers show signs of distress – missed payments and plunging credit scores – cut them off from new lines of credit. But after she finished her presentation, a banker at the back of the room bluntly rejected her suggestion. "We have no interest in cutting back on our lending to these people," he told Warren. "They are the ones who provide most of our profits."
That moment, Warren says, "began to change my whole vision of consumer finance." She came to see Wall Street banks as predators, offering too-easy credit and too-complex contracts designed to "trick and trap" borrowers into recurring fees and exploding interest rates. "If people ended up in bankruptcy," she realized, "it didn't matter for the profit model."
So, here is someone who started with a belief which later turned out to be wrong. And she was courageous enough to change and became a fierce advocate of the very same group she wanted to "expose". That is awesome Change We can Believe in. She was my hero even before I read this profile but now I feel even more strongly.
Now for some bonus tidbit. It is not just Turbo Tax Timmy who fears her. Jamie Dimon, described by Obama as a "savvy businessman", (but a socialist welfare pig actually - apologies to pigs & socialism) is afraid of debating her :
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/...
And who better than a lady to clean up the mess left by the Old boys network? I rest my case.