AP source: Wall St critic tapped for consumer post (updated)

[ProSense]

AP source: Wall St critic tapped for consumer post

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will appoint Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren as a special adviser to oversee the creation of a new consumer protection bureau, a Democratic official said Wednesday.

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The consumer bureau was created under the financial regulatory bill Obama signed into law earlier this year. It will have vast powers to enforce regulations covering mortgages, credit cards and other financial products, and be financed by the Federal Reserve.

The new bureau would consolidate consumer protection duties now spread across various regulatory agencies. The financial regulation law gives the Treasury Department the authority to run the consumer protection bureau while the nomination of its director is pending.

The law also says the Treasury secretary must transfer those functions to the new bureau within a year, but gives him latitude to seek an additional six months to complete the creation of the agency. That means Warren could, potentially, perform her new duties into 2012.

"I very much would like to see her directing that agency. Exactly in what form is less important to me that that she does it," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "If someone told me that a candidate for that job could be easily confirmed, I think that would be a disqualification."

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Updated to add this NYT report:

Consumer Advocate Now Expected to Get Head Start as Assistant to Obama

By SEWELL CHAN

WASHINGTON – Elizabeth Warren, who conceived the idea for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will oversee its establishment as an assistant to President Obama, an official briefed on the decision said Wednesday evening.

The decision, which Mr. Obama will announce this week, will allow Ms. Warren, a Harvard law professor, to effectively run the new agency without having to go through a potentially contentious confirmation battle in the Senate. The creation of the bureau is a centerpiece of the Wall Street financial overhaul that Mr. Obama signed in July.

Ms. Warren will be named an assistant to the president, a designation that is held by senior White House staff members, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff. She will also be a special adviser to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and report jointly to both men. The financial regulation law delegated the powers of the bureau to the Treasury Department until a permanent director is appointed and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term.

The decision does not preclude the possibility that Ms. Warren could eventually be named director, and at the least, she would play a pivotal role in deciding whom to appoint to the job, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt the formal announcement. Several news organizations, including ABC, reported Ms. Warren’s impending appointment on Wednesday

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[FrenchieCat]

1. I was told that she has to be running with the agency plans in her hand

up and down the corridors in order for Warren to actually be "running" it.....
and anything short of that, ain't nothing.

Yep. Read that right here at DU...... :rofl:

[Cha]

4. It must be

exhausting to be so removed from reality..playin' catch up all the time.

[dave29]

5. run you in circles these DUers will

round and round they go, where they stop, everyone knows

[Zenlitened]

2. "but her lack of support in the financial community..."

Like that's a bad thing?

(Warren) had been considered the leading candidate to head the bureau itself, but her lack of support in the financial community could have set the stage for contentious Senate hearings that might ultimately have derailed her confirmation.

The "contentious battle" could have benefited Democrats enormously. Capped off with a recess appointment, if need be. But handled properly, by forcing her opponents into a full-throated defense of the financial industry at the expense of Joe and Jane Main Street...

Where's the downside in that?


edit: div bracket

[dave29]

6. waste of time?

I thought we needed jobs

:shrug:

[Zenlitened]

8. I thought we needed to get voters back to solidly supporting Democrats...

... so that Democrats can govern effectively in the matter of, for example, creating jobs.

[underpants]

3. Somewhere on Beaver street at 7:15 at a Starbucks slick suited douchebags

will hear their instructions on this from a TV and will either make people money or take people's money and then at 5:30 they will hit a bar and and drink the day away maybe getting a gladflyhandjob but knowing that they are playing a game with "dumb money" (not theirs) and not give a rip.

[dave29]

7. +10

yup.