In fiery speech, Warren calls for limiting size of banks

[n2doc]

WASHINGTON – Senator Elizabeth Warren said Thursday morning that “we have to pick up the slingshots again” in the David versus Goliath battle with big banks.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who entered politics as a critic of big banks, used a fiery speech at George Washington University Law School marking five years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers to renew her call to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, aimed at limiting the size and scope of banks, which are federally insured.

“It would reduce ‘too big’ by dismantling the behemoths,” she said. “Big banks would still be big – but not too big to fail or, for that matter, too big to manage, too big to regulate, too big for trial, or too big for jail.”

The act was repealed during the Clinton administration. Her bill to reinstate it is cosponsored by senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, and Angus King, a Maine Independent who often sides with Democrats.

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http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2013/09/12/elizabeth-warren-says-pick-slingshots-again-fight-with-big-banks/sdwk02ULbsRqMLWfj10n7K/story.html

[Laelth]

1. Good idea. k&r for Elizabeth Warren. n/t

-Laelth

[snappyturtle]

2. Go Elizabeth!

[redstatebluegirl]

3. We can only hope!

I love Elizabeth, in a perfect world without the PAC money she could be President. But this is an imperfect world, full of bankers and businessmen with deep pockets who want the majority of us to be poor and barely making it so we are beholding to them.

I myself am tired of it, and tired of being called a Communist whenever I bring it up in mixed company. I'll keep my money in my small town bank thank you, but that isn't much leverage I'm afraid...

Go get em Elizabeth, keep up the good fight...

[zipplewrath]

5. You might be surprised at your exposure

Your small town bank may be working through a larger bank. My credit union did for years. They don't any longer, but it isn't always easy to see what exposure you have through an apparently "independent" bank.

[Scuba]

4. 2016

[hedgehog]

6. 2016!

[BrotherIvan]

7. Wanna know how to gin up excitement for 2014?

THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!

Take a stand and then say it over and over. Stick to it. FIGHT FOR IT.

Educate people as to why your position is right. We let the repubs frame every damn issue because they have the corporate water-carrying all wrapped up in a pretty Jesus (with an AK) bow. But if there was some way to get it through people's thick skulls, they would tell you: they want their kids to go to good schools, they want good jobs and safe streets; they don't want to work three low-wage jobs till they drop. They WANT what the Democratic party USED to stand for.

Fuck! It's so infuriating!!! This is basic shit!

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Sing it loud, sing it clear.

[BrotherIvan]

9. And we coulda had public financing in 2008

Warren is doing a great job of pointing out how things SHOULD work in the banking sector. Now we need someone to create a vision of how things SHOULD work domestically. People accept this third way shit because that is the vision they are given, that and divide and conquer, race and class wars, and Gawd. If the old American Dream is no longer possible, what is the new American Dream? What is the new path for citizens of this country to live a life of dignity and purpose? I do believe that if a voice could get through all the bullshit of reality tv and celebrity news and outline a way forward, we would be able to rally around that idea. Now it's reactionary, holding on to the last vestiges of the middle class against an overwhelming tide of corporate control. Tolstoy inspired both Gandhi and MLK. Maybe there is someone out there who can state a vision of a future for this country, if not, it will (unwittingly) be Orwell. And that isn't hyperbole.

[forestpath]

10. K&R