It's no surprise to anyone here that Elizabeth Warren is absolutely fearless when it comes to taking on the corrupt banking practices of this country's financial institutions.
Yesterday, she sailed into the Treasury Department officials for not seeking the prosecution of HSBC for allegedly laundering money for Mexican drug cartels and helping Iran and Libya to hide assets though wire transfers.
"What does it take, how many billions of dollars do you have to launder from drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution?" Warren asked at a Banking Committee hearing on money laundering.
Of course, the Treasury Department officials insisted that prosecutions are the responsibility of the Justice Department.
The following video illustrates just how lucky we are to have her leading the Senate Banking Committee:
She states exactly what all of us have been saying for years:
"If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you'll go to jail," Warren said at Thursday's hearing. "If you're caught repeatedly, you can go to jail for life. Evidently, if you launder nearly $1 billion for drug cartels and violate our government's sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night. I think that's fundamentally wrong."
"She is as advertised," said James Ballentine, chief lobbyist for the American Bankers Association. "She came in and concentrated on being a strong advocate for consumers, and she has certainly done that and a little more."
I'm already a big fan of Elizabeth Warren.
"Sometimes it will mean working quietly in the shadows, and other times it will be speaking up forcefully," she said. "I'm willing to do either. I just want to find the way to get things done."
More here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/...