More of Warren's Views

The Boston Globe has excerpts from an interview with Elizabeth Warren, the head of the Congressional Oversight Panel. Her remarks are much more scathing than those in the recent report. Here are some of her comments:

It's frustrating because without a clearly articulated goal and identified metrics to determine whether the goal is being accomplished, it's almost impossible to tell if a program is successful.
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The major problem is that Treasury has not articulated its goals. And without that, we can't have a robust debate about whether they're headed in the right direction; instead, we're stuck with this more technical argument about the implementation of the [Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility] or the details of the Capital Acquisition Program. And that misses the central question of, should we be subsidizing failing banks or liquidating them? When we acquire capital, should we exercise more control over the institutions that take the money or less control? Those are the central policy issues that the American public has a right to participate in.
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Anyone who thinks that they can take tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money and continue to operate business as usual lives in a fantasy world that I don't understand. Culture clash? No! This is not a culture clash. This is not about taxpayers who don't get it. This is about people who think [in a] fantasy, that their world is prosperous and continues to create value that can be parsed out privately, when they are relying on huge subsidies from the taxpayer. It's just wrong!
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I believe that ultimately, the banks exist to serve the American people. Not vice versa. We cannot have a vibrant economy without a strong and reliable banking system, but it is impossible to save the banking system independently of saving the American family.
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There was a real focus on saving all of the institutions rather than a focus on saving enough of a system to keep it workable for the underlying economy.
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Every time I do the paperwork for the panel and note a $10 billion expenditure, I think about how many schools that might have built, how many hospitals that might have updated. Those dollars are not just ink on a page. They're real.
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The power of this panel is derived entirely from the voice of the American people. If they stay out of the policy debates, then Treasury can spend at will and reshape the American economy with no one in the room but insiders. If they are involved, the policies will look different.
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Would that she were running Treasury.