In one of the ledes currently front and center on HuffPo, Ryan Grim has taken note of comments made by the President at his press conference earlier today that, "
Obama Strongly Hints At Warren Nomination To Head Consumer Bureau." Apparently, our own FPer, Jed Lewison, caught the same vibe in, "
Presidential press conference."
Obama Strongly Hints At Warren Nomination To Head Consumer Bureau
Ryan Grim
Huffington Post
First Posted: 09-10-10 01:36 PM | Updated: 09-10-10 02:41 PM
President Obama hailed his long friendship with Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren on Friday, crediting her at his new conference with the idea for what has since become the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, when asked whether she was still the leading candidate to run it. After calling her a "dear friend" and adding that he's known her since he was in law school, he strongly hinted that she would be the eventual nominee by qualifying that he was "not going to make an official announcement until it's ready."
Obama's clear emphasis on "official" left little room for doubt that the matter is all but decided. Speculation has swirled that Obama would name Warren to head the agency during the summer recess to avoid a confirmation battle. His opportunity to do so expires early next week, when Congress returns. But he could also recess appoint Warren in October, after Congress recesses to campaign for reelection.
"The idea for this agency was Elizabeth Warren's. She's a dear friend of mine. She's somebody I've known since I was in law school. And I have been in conversations with her. She is a tremendous advocate for this idea," he said. "I'll have an announcement soon about how we're going to move forward. I have had conversations with Elizabeth over these last couple of months. But I'm not going to make an official announcement until it's ready."
And, DKos' Lewison: Presidential press conference (liveblog, from late this morning)
Update 5: Question is: Whither Elizabeth Warren? Answer: First, POTUS touts the consumer advocacy/oversight agency that was created by the Wall Street Reform bill. He credits Elizabeth Warren -- a "dear friend" -- with coming up with the idea of this agency. He says he has been "in conversations with her" and that she is "a tremendous advocate for this agency." "I'll have an announcement soon...I've had conversations." He says he won't announce his decision until it's "ready." Sure smells like pretty strong hints for Warren, though!
As many have speculated, including Grim today, if the President's going to avoid a confirmation battle and make this a recess appointment, it's either going to happen early next week or in October.
Appointing Warren, as economist Simon Johnson noted early this morning, would be a major nightmare for the GOP: "Republican Nightmare: Putting Elizabeth Warren to Work Now."
Republican Nightmare: Putting Elizabeth Warren to Work Now
Simon Johnson
Baseline Scenario
September 10, 2010 5:13AM
President Obama is finally looking for bold, creative, and clever ways to change the way the US economy operates - preferably with measures that will take effect by the November midterms and change the tone of the broader political debate. His tax proposals this week have some symbolic value, but in the broader sense all of these fiscal suggestions are tinkering at the margins.
What could he possibly do that would grab people's attention, mobilize his political base, and put his opponents on the defensive? There is an easy answer: Appoint Elizabeth Warren to start running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) immediately.
And the brilliant part of this idea - as explained by Shahien Nasiripour at the Huffington Post (see also David Dayen's Thursday coverage)- is that the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation allows the person charged with setting up this new agency to be an outright appointment, rather than a nomination subject to Senate confirmation.
Johnson pointed out that the Treasury Secretary is also authorized by the recently passed Dodd-Frank FinReg bill to pick an interim head for the CFPB.
I agree with Johnson's comments in the closing to his post...
The president needs clearer messages and stronger substance - and he needs them fast. He should move at once to appoint Elizabeth Warren.
This will make the President two-for-two in September, IMHO, if he announces the Warren nomination this coming Monday or Tuesday.
His announcement, yesterday, of current Council member Austan Goolsbee to Chair the President's Council on Economic Advisors, replacing outgoing Chair Christina Romer, was another good move, IMHO.
If you note the links in the previous paragraph, the NY Times refers to Goolsbee as "left-of-center," while the Wiki labels him a "centrist."
As far as I'm concerned, anyone that reads my work on DKos and sends me a follow-up email (two days before they're appointed to the new administration in late 2008) in praise of Joseph Stiglitz, while also acknowledging that our government habitually undercounts our nation's unemployed, is nothing short of reality-based awesomeness! (Heh.)
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Excerpt from: Is ignoring Stiglitz, Volcker and reality a viable strategy?
Is ignoring Stiglitz, Volcker and reality a viable strategy?
by bobswern
Daily Kos
Sat Mar 14, 2009 at 01:41:27 AM EDT
...Perhaps two of Stiglitz' biggest fans in the current administration are Vice President Biden's chief economist, Jared Bernstein, and long-time Obama economics advisor Austan Goolsbie. The article mentions a comment by Bernstein:
"This is Joe's moment in time," said Jared Bernstein, chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden.
Bernstein, who calls himself a Stiglitz "disciple," said the economist "understood the tendency for markets to fail in ways that nobody else did. He was way ahead of the rest of us."
And, I actually received an email from none other than Austan Goolsbie -- NOTE: folks, don't ever underestimate the power of your diaries! -- this past Sunday (which I believe was in response to one or two of my diaries headlining his comments on unemployment last week), pointing me to this Newsweek article on the Nobel laureate from this past December: "Chasing Stiglitz." Subtitled: Obama's economic team is missing the one guy who's been right all along. Hey, if Mr. Goolsbie thinks I should revisit a December article on Joseph Stiglitz, maybe you should give it a few minutes, as well.
Looking two paragraphs up in this diary, Bernstein's comment is spot on, especially when you note a paragraph from the Newsweek piece brought to our attention by Goolsbie:
As far back as 1990, Stiglitz argued in a paper (it can be found on The Economist's Voice Web site at www.bepress.com) against securitizing mortgages and selling them because "when banks retained the mortgages which they issued, they had greater incentives to screen loan applicants." He asked, again with startling prescience: "Has securitization been a result of more efficient transactions technologies, or an unfounded reduction in concern about the importance of screening loan applicants?" None other than Milton Friedman, the founding father of the free-market era, told me in an interview before he died that Stiglitz also had been more correct than everyone else about how to transform Russia into a market economy when he argued that institution-building and creating regulatory authorities were an important preliminary step. "In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, I kept being asked what the Russians should do," Friedman told me in 2002. "I said, 'Privatize, privatize, privatize. I was wrong. Joe was right. What we want is privatization, and the rule of law."
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(Diarist's Note: I've learned how to spell "Goolsbee" correctly in the past 18 months!)
Have a great Friday night, everyone! Peace!