Elizabeth Warren: Glass-Steagall as Symbol [View all]

Wow, I'm not sure how I missed this one. Back in 2012, Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote a column about how Glass-Steagall wouldn't have affected the 2008 financial crisis which led to the Great Recession. As part of that, he had a phone conversation with Elizabeth Warren on the topic. Here is what she said at the time:

In my conversation with Ms. Warren she told me that one of the reasons she’s been pushing reinstating Glass-Steagall — even if it wouldn’t have prevented the financial crisis — is that it is an easy issue for the public to understand and “you can build public attention behind.”

She added that she considers Glass-Steagall more of a symbol of what needs to happen to regulations than the specifics related to the act itself.

And yet, here she is in July 2015 introducing the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act on the Senate floor using all the scary things that happened during the financial crisis as a backdrop.



We also know that reinstating Glass-Steagall is one of the five things she prioritized for Wall Street reform. One has to wonder if anything else on that list is "more of a symbol."

But perhaps most importantly, during the Democratic debate, both Sanders and O'Malley jumped all over Hillary Clinton for not including the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall as part of her own proposal for Wall Street reform. That's what happens when the patron-saint of "populist anger" toys with the public by using symbols to ratchet up an emotional reaction.

Read More: http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2015/10/elizabeth-warren-glass-steagall-as.html