President Obama speaks on the first steps he is taking to address the fiscal cliff. “I am open to compromise, am committed to solving our fiscal challenges, but I refuse to accept any approach that isn’t balanced,” he says. Here is a direct link.
Conflict is not loved by most people, and certainly not by 63 year old, likeable law professors. But sometimes conflict is a necessary part of the journey to meaningful reform. Elizabeth Warren has her conflict cut out for her as she tries to speak truth to power amid the incestuous tentacles of the Senate Banking Committee and a finance sector that has run treacherously a muck the past few years. May the force be with Elizabeth.
“Wall Street CEOs — the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs — still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them,” Warren said at the convention. “Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do.”
–Elizabeth Warren, newly elected Democratic Senator for Massachusetts
Ms. Warren embraced policies during her campaign that make big-bank officials cringe, including reinstating Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that separated commercial and investment banks.
“Wall Street has reason to be afraid. She will add to…the voices in Congress saying that the megabanks need to be downsized,” said Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that also supports breaking up the megabanks.”
See: Banking’s “worst nightmare” takes her fight to the Senate. Also see: The importance of Elizabeth Warren and Three Cheers for Elizabeth Warren
Bill Gross, Co-CIO, Founder & Managing Director of PIMCO, explains why higher tax rates in the New Year, would mean that dividend paying stocks are presently over-priced. Here is a direct link.
