Elizabeth Warren: Harvard Yard Slips Through LPAC Cracks

[Post Summary]

Catch us the foxes that spoil the vines
—Song of Solomon

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If ever there was an example supporting charges made in The Harvard Yard, Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, is it. That she slipped through the cracks and received what appeared positive endorsement at LPAC is an error I wish to correct.

I dug into Senator Bernie Sanders (I-CT) letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid calling for investigation into our nation's financial crisis, and learned of his desire to "extend the jurisdiction and authority of the TARP Oversight Panel, chaired by Elizabeth Warren, to include a careful and thorough investigation of the causes of the financial difficulties that led to the creation of TARP."

This, of course, seems all well and good on the surface. But, really, how is it any different than the Financial Markets Commission Act of 2009? What about the cherished principle of accountability elected representatives are meant to uphold? This, indeed, was the matter raised yesterday by Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) in his opening statement delivered before Senate Banking Committee hearings on Modernizing the U.S. Financial Regulatory System. No doubt, this is politics at its best, lending the United States' Representative Republic its most useful, and valuable attraction.

Beyond the issue of accountability, there's good reason why the idea of handing off financial crisis investigation to Elizabeth Warren's COP is not the best solution. Thoughtful resistance simply boils down to opposing any effort at lending credibility to anyone whose frame of reference suggests the myriad of derivative securities (and everything else meant to prop up their value) are legitimate. This, it seems, is precisely what the likes of Harvard-linked reductionist, Elizabeth Warren, represents.

A better approach might integrate the Congressional Oversight Panel into Senate Banking Committee investigations, giving fair hearing to those believing our financial crisis is but a matter of some technical, regulatory breakdown. Truth is the problem we face runs much deeper. It is largely one of lost national identity such as defines the United States of America a beacon of hope and a temple of liberty — a nation standing as a bastion against all forms of tyranny. Here we are talking the financial kind. Any effort failing to identify how our securities-based financial system opens the vault of our national wealth to the pillaging of pirates is better suspected a sly ruse. This, it seems, is the danger of handing off investigation of our ongoing financial crisis to Elizabeth Warren's COP.

—Tom Chechatka