Elizabeth Warren
Related: About this forumHow Elizabeth Warren Is Yanking Hillary Clinton to the Left
She may not run, but shes already exerting a gravitational pull
Elizabeth Warren, the famously antiWall Street Senator from Massachusetts, has become the lunar goddess of liberal politics. Just as the moon pulls the tides, Warren is slowly but steadily towing the economic conversation in the Democratic Party to the left. Witness the barn-burning speech she gave on the Senate floor in December, railing against the fact that lobbyists from Citigroup and other big banks had been allowed to squeeze a rider into the latest congressional budget bill that would make it easier for federally insured banks to keep trading derivatives, which Warren Buffett once described as the financial weapons of mass destruction that sparked the 2008 crisis. Then there was her opposition to President Obamas most recent Treasury nominee, Antonio Weiss, a banker who Warren told me has no background to justify his nomination other than working for a big Wall Street firm. (Weiss dropped out shortly after Warren began denouncing him.) Couple that with her continued calls to break up the big banks and criticism of policies espoused by longtime Democratic economic advisers like Bob Rubin and Larry Summers, and youve the makings of a consequential gravitational pull.
Warren is more than just a dogged critic. The former Harvard law professors influence comes in large part because shes tapped into an existential crisis on the left: namely, liberals belated anxiety over the capture of the Democratic Party by high finance, which began two decades ago. Ronald Reagan might be the President most closely associated with laissez-faire economics, but both Republicans and Democrats have frequently turned to finance to generate quick-hit growth in tough times, deregulating markets or loosening monetary policy rather than focusing on underlying fixes for the real economy. Shrugging and citing a market-knows-best philosophy to avoid difficult political decisions has been a bipartisan exercise for quite a long time now.
And the anxiety is deepened because democrats, like Republicans, bear blame for the financial crisis of 2008. Jimmy Carter deregulated interest rates in 1980, a move that pacified consumers and financiers grappling with stagflation but also helped set the stage for the home-mortgage implosion. In 1999, as President Bill Clintons Treasury Secretary, Rubin signed off on the Glass-Steagall banking-regulation death certificate, a move that many, Warren included, believe was a key factor in worsening the crisis. Loose accounting standards supported by many Democrats during the Clinton years also encouraged the growth of stock options as the main form of corporate compensation, a trend that French academic Thomas Piketty, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and many other economists believe exacerbated the staggering gap between rich and poor in the U.S. today. I asked Warren whether she blamed such policies for our current wage stagnation, which has persisted despite robust economic growth. Id lay it right at the feet of trickle-down economics, yes, she says. Weve tried that experiment for 35 years, and it hasnt worked.
Speculation has been rife that Warren might consider a presidential run of her own, taking on front runner Hillary Clinton just to make sure the same trickle-down team doesnt end up in office again. When I ask her flatly if shed run if she thought a Rubin or Summers would be making economic policy for the next four years, she paused. I tell you
Im going to do everything I can. Im going to fight as hard as I have to. This has to change.
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http://time.com/3668768/elizabeth-warren-hillary-clinton-left-wing/
djean111
(14,255 posts)We all know how much campaign blather is worth, nowadays. Nothing.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)It's impossible to see her moved in any direction. That may be part of the plan.
pscot
(21,037 posts)She looked like hell when she quit as SOS. She was burned out. She has to be thinking about that. The campaign is like a double marathon. She may not be up for it.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)until March 31 of 1968.
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/Johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp
Anything can happen. I sure hope Elizabeth Warren runs.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Response to n2doc (Original post)
AtomicKitten This message was self-deleted by its author.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)And I don't believe any "inequality" talk from Hillary will be more any more than talk.