Posted on 07/16/2011 6:38:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Elizabeth Warren will exit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before it officially launches, according to a single-sourced Bloomberg report last night. According to an unnamed “briefed” person, Obama will dump the controversial Warren for someone already working at the CFPB, and the announcement will come next week:
Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor, was appointed last fall by Obama to set up the consumer bureau until a director was named. Warren previously was head of the congressional watchdog panel overseeing the bank bailout.
This was one of those “temporary” assignments that an administration would eventually make permanent. Warren, however, became a lightning rod not just for her approach to the CFPB but also for her interaction with Congress. Called to testify in May, Warren insisted that the panel limit its questioning because of a prior engagement on her schedule. The prior engagements appear to have been a couple of internal meetings — and an interview with Vanity Fair.
With Congressional relations off to that kind of start, it’s no wonder that Republicans in the Senate have already made clear that they wouldn’t allow Warren to be confirmed:
The consumer bureau, which is to begin formal operations on July 21, was established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial- regulatory overhaul to fill what lawmakers said was a gap in oversight of products whose abuse contributed to the 2008 credit crisis, including mortgages and credit cards.
The bureau’s director requires confirmation by the Senate. After 44 Republican senators announced in May that they wouldn’t vote to approve any candidate to run the bureau without changes in its structure, analysts said the White House might have to resort to a temporary appointment during a congressional recess. Sixty of the 100 senators are effectively required to vote for a nomination due to procedural rules.
It’s no surprise that Obama wants to look for a replacement for his lightning-rod initial choice, especially after Warren’s appearance at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week. Democrats tried distracting the committee by loudly demanding that Darrell Issa subpoena executives from large banks, but Issa instead focused on Warren and the ambiguous limitations on the CFPB’s power:
The hearing, called “Consumer Financial Protection Efforts: Answers Needed,” was supposed to look at the powers of the agency, which many Republicans hold in deep mistrust.
Issa, who said he wasn’t out to “micromanage” the bureau, which is housed in the Federal Reserve, but said he wanted to see if the agency was “properly designed and prepared.”
“The Federal Reserve is not transparent,” Issa said. “The Federal Reserve does resist any kind of congressional oversight and considers it unreasonable interference.” …
McHenry, on Thursday, said he wanted to know more about the types of financial products the bureau would target – insisting that those moves would cause uncertainty for investors and business leaders.
“I fear the actions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that limit access to credit … would only further damage this troubling economy,” he said.
Bloomberg only offers the one, anonymous source for this story, which seems a little unusual — and weak. Under the circumstances, the decision wouldn’t be a surprise, but normally media outlets like a second source before publication. Either they trust this particular source more than most, or Bloomberg figures it’s inevitable anyway.
One more tax leech agency.
Odd how all these appointments seem to creat uncertainty
in the market, that’s what we need more government
oversight...
However, I hope everyone and all FReepers are aware this marxist witch believes that each and every credit transaction is the business of the Federal Government.
The noose continues to tighten around us; however, as I said I did not read this specific article. I do hope the witch has been stopped in her marxist tracks.
By vowing to keep the House in session for the balance of Obama's term, the Freshmen have cut off the "recess appointment" route altogether.
Dodd-Frank is bad legislation. The CFPB is bad regulation. And Elizabeth Warren is a worse regulator.
Job A in January, 2013: Repeal Obamacare.
Job B: Repeal Dodd-Frank
And don't stop there...
THe American Middle Class has recently been estimated to be worth about $77T. Consider that with a bankrupt US, and practically all liabilities are being transferred to the taxpayers, that we are, in the eyes of all international bankers, worthy of being placed as a population in....receivership. The CFPB can accomplish just that with full micro-monitoring on an instantaneous basis, data collection beyond our capability to understand, and manipulation as consumers in regard to everything we use, desire, and and are compelled to consume. Dodd in preliminary Senate hearings with Shelby, noted that the financial reform legislation creating the CFPB, funded by the Fed Reserve Bank, was the only way to control the people. In preparation for the collapse of the US monetary system, we are in receivership, and Geithner and the Fed Reserve have rejected Warren as an advocate for consumers.
The CFPB will offer consumer “protection” only with complete submission to its products, data gathering, massive regulations to come.
Some more info from May 2010:
Senate Democrats Pass Bill Allowing Govt to Collect Addresses, ATM Records of Bank Customers
Friday, May 21, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
(CNSNews.com) – Senate Democrats united to pass a financial regulatory bill that allows the government to collect data on any person operating in financial markets at any level, including the collection of personal transaction records from local banks, including customers’ addresses and ATM receipts.
The Senate voted 59-39 on Thursday to pass the bill – the chief aim of which is to more-heavily regulate the financial industry – sending it to a conference committee in the House of Representatives, where differences between the House and Senate versions will be ironed out.
The bill, if it becomes law, will create the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and empower it to “gather information and activities of persons operating in consumer financial markets,” including the names and addresses of account holders, ATM and other transaction records, and the amount of money kept in each customer’s account.
The new bureaucracy is then allowed to “use the data on branches and [individual and personal] deposit accounts … for any purpose” and may keep all records on file for at least three years and these can be made publicly available upon request.
Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said that Democrats who claim this new bureaucracy will protect consumers are misleading the public.
“[T]he American people are being misled,” Shelby said on the Senate floor on Thursday night. “The authors of this bill are telling them that this legislation has been drafted to address the recent financial crisis and that it will ‘tame’ Wall Street. I am afraid that they are going to be disappointed.”
Shelby slammed the new consumer bureaucracy, saying that it was meant not to protect consumers but to “manage” them by monitoring their behavior.
“Mr. President, make no mistake, behind the veil of anti-Wall Street rhetoric is an unrelenting desire to manage every facet of commerce under the guise of consumer protection.
“They may be interested in protecting consumers, but they are more interested in managing them,” Shelby said.
Shelby also criticized the idea that Americans need government to watch over their every financial move, saying that it was better to allow people the freedom to make their own choices and fail than to never allow them the freedom to choose at all.
“Mr. President, I have faith in the American people and their ability to make good choices,” said Shelby. “Granted, we do not always choose well. But I believe that a poor choice freely made is far superior to a good choice made for me.”
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., right, and the committee’s ranking Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., emerge from a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, April 26, 2010, ahead of a crucial test vote for the financial reform bill. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
“I am afraid that the architects of this bill do not share this sentiment,” he said. “Nor do they share my faith in the American people.”
Shelby further said that the ability of the Federal Reserve to collect such detailed information about the most basic of financial transactions was the beginning of an effort by government to regulate every financial action of every American citizen.
“This new consumer bureaucracy is intended by its architects in the Treasury to begin the process of financial regulation with the intent of changing the behaviors of the American people,” said the senator.
Shelby appears to be correct. The bill allows the bureau to collect any and all information on any person operating in the financial markets.
As it reads: “[T]he Bureau shall have the authority to gather information from time to time regarding the organization, business conduct, markets, and activities of persons operating in consumer financial services markets.”
Oh goody! Warren can now be appointed as the Consumer Protection Czar, at $171,000 per year! And still keep her job at Harvard.
Oh goody! Warren can now be appointed as the Consumer Protection Czar, at $171,000 per year! And still keep her job at Harvard.
Nope. She's finished in Washington. Remember, the Freshmen have arranged to keep the House in session for the balance of Obama's term. Consequently, there will be no "recess appointments" for the duration.
It's back to Cambridge for Ms. Warren -- where she can do less damage.
Has the 0bama administration ever appointed anyone to an important position that has ever had a real job?
Every liberal I encounter keeps saying “MORE REGULATION.”
They spout that, just like “BUSH” and “HALLIBURTON.”
Stalin had plenty of regulation. So did Hitler. So does Chavez.
So does Omoslem.
El Uno dumps El Flako.
Exactly. We are drowning in debt and the Dipstick in the WH is creating new Agencies, instead of getting rid of the old ones that are not needed.
Darrell Issa has been doing a fantastic job with this committee on many fronts. What a refreshing change from that extra terrestial Waxman.
Joe McCarthy would have thought he had died and gone to heaven if he were alive today and investigating the Obama administration.
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