Meet Elizabeth Warren

One of the lesser-known, but equally important, figures in the debate over banking regulation has been Elizabeth Warren, a professor of law at Harvard and the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was created to supervise the TARP bank bailout money.

Since the crisis began in 2007-8, Warren has advocated for an independent consumer protection agency designed specifically to monitor financial devices. In her words, banks have gouged consumers using "deceptive and dangerous terms buried in the fine print of opaque, incomprehensible, and largely unregulated contracts" (see that blog post here).

One of her interesting observations about this entire fiasco regards the mentality of ordinary citizens and the anger they feel over financial malpractice. It's not "populist rage" they feel; they see with "crystalline clarity" that "their economic security is under assault" (same source).

For the same reason that doctors are required to pass the board exam, and attorneys the Bar, it seems more than reasonable to expect financial operatives to submit to some authority as well. Think about it: financial companies operate under similar (though not identical) conditions as doctors and lawyers. They are paid to perform a service that, while in the short-term may incur costs, will presumably pay off. I suppose an opponent of banking reform might reply that anyone who becomes involved in financial operations should know that nothing is certain, and there is risk involved.

To me, that brings up a couple more questions:

• First, should we consider financial operators to be performing a service (like that of doctors or lawyers), or should we call them what they really are (or what they've shown themselves to be over the last two years), which are glorified gamblers who have loaded the die?
• Second, can we consider the clause, "by becoming involved in financial operations, you submit yourself to vast potential risk," to be an adequate cop-out from public oversight?