Zywicki v. Warren

The battle at the end of the alphabet continues as Todd Zywicki questions the unconfirmed appointment of Elizabeth Warren as consumer protection czarina:

The Obama administration has promised that the Federal Reserve's new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be independent from politics, a model of regulatory expertise grounded in sound data and economics. Naming Harvard Law Prof. Elizabeth Warren as de facto agency head undermines both goals.

By appointing another White House czar to avoid Senate confirmation, the administration politicized the powerful new bureaucracy from its birth. And by appointing an individual with a track record of using questionable research to advance policy ends, it has jeopardized the second goal as well.

And his Big Finish:

The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the most powerful bureaucratic positions ever created in the American political system. It can regulate or ban almost every consumer credit product in the country, yet it is beyond Congress's power of the purse because its budget is guaranteed as a percentage of the Fed's annual revenues. Under normal circumstances, the Senate would have the opportunity to ask Ms. Warren to explain the way in which she has sometimes interpreted data in her research before entrusting her with control of the agency.

By doing an end-run around the confirmation process, the Obama administration has eliminated our opportunity to find out. And by installing the head of the agency as an assistant to the president inside the White House, it has insulated her from meaningful congressional oversight.

One of his appraisals of Ms. Warren's 2005 bankruptcy study is here.

We won't be looking for these criticisms in the mainstream media - when the advocacy journalists cover the advocacy academics the results are predictable.

Comments

[Sue]

I assume if the president created it another president can abolish it. Better keep this in mind in 2012 and hope not too much damage is done in the next 2 years.

[NK]

The so-called "Financial reform" bill was a complete side show. Some logical capital requirements, making the Fed a comprehensive bank regultor, the "Volcker Rule"-- mostly OK but no biggie. The only thing the Dems and Barry O wanted was the Consumer Bureau. That Bureau is a fascist tool to dictate finance terms between lenders and borrowers; no finance contract is worth the paper it's printed on because this fascist tool of the government can invalidate it at the government's whim. The Federal Government Uber Alis. This Warren creature is the Albert Speer of the Obama Administration.

[pagar]

"I assume if the president created it another president can abolish it."

The state of government employee unions, which as I understand were created by presidential degree back in the JFK presidency leads one to wonder if anything once created by government can be abolished. Nothing has done more damage to America IMO, than government employee unions.

Another example might be the TVA. The mission to been electric power to rural areas has long ago been achieved, yet the government agency lives on. LUN

[Rick Ballard]

Sue,

We should be grateful for the profound stupidity exhibited by The Great Immiserator on every day of his pathetic tenure in office. Denying those nasty lenders the possibility of making a profit by lending to the improvident (the true core constituency of the Dolt in Chief) guarantees that they will be denied any form of credit whatsoever and also guarantees a measurable decline in the GDP.

He's determined to suck the last drop from the poisoned chalice and we should happy to see him do so.

[glasater]

The Warren appointment led to the following:

Senate blocks recess appointments with deal between Dems, GOP

By scheduling pro forma sessions twice a week, lawmakers can take away Obama’s ability to make recess appointments.

[Captain Hate]

As Jane has mentioned previously, Scott Brown was conned into voting for that scam reform bill (leaving Freddie and Fannie untouched FTMFL) by some nebulous promise of jobs being created out of it. If there are any jobs being created they have to be similar to Sarbox's bullshit compliance jobs as companys scurry to try and deal with an ill-defined overhead nightmare that doesn't add a penny to incoming revenues. Part of his education should be to find out how that's working out.

[glasater]

Regarding the Warren appointment I'm going to repeat this Meredith Whitney line again:

FinReg and consumer protection will make it more expensive to be poor.

[anduril]

Here's Clarice, Cecil and Barny Fwank's original thesis:

The proposal to free spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for Israel extending a temporary freeze on settlement building has now received support from four Democrats in Congress. [yawn] Seriously, who really cares? Pollard isn't even in the same league as guys like Hanssen (who got agents working for us killed) or Walker (who compromised our most sensitive codes), and Israel is an ally.

So when I quote "wiki crap" (well documented) re who really cares:

At the 1998 Wye River Conference, Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Pollard's release, and President Clinton made a public statement about reviewing the case.[55] This precipitated an "incredulous" reaction in the American intelligence community.[59] Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as well as six other former U.S. Secretaries of Defense (Melvin R. Laird, Frank C. Carlucci, Richard B. Cheney, Caspar W. Weinberger, James R. Schlesinger and Elliot L. Richardson) spoke out in opposition to clemency for Jonathan Pollard.[31] They were joined by several senior congressional leaders.[31]

Four past directors of Naval Intelligence, William Studeman, Sumner Shapiro, John L. Butts, and Thomas Brooks, authored a response to the talk of clemency and what they termed "the myths that have arisen from this clever public relations campaign... aimed at transforming Pollard from greedy, arrogant betrayer of the American national trust into Pollard, committed Israeli patriot".[60]

Yeah, all THOSE guys really cared. George Tenet cared enough that he threatened to resign. They didn't care what league Pollard was in--they knew that whatever league he was in he should not be granted clemency. Be it noted: they were not arguing against parole, they were arguing against clemency--as am I. Clarice, Cecil and Barny want to confuse you about that.

Pollard was a nutjob looking for someone to sell secrets to.

This simply points out the truth that most betrayers are deeply flawed individuals: Walker, Ames, Hanssen, Pollard. Take your pick. None should be granted clemency. All should be dealt with within the terms of their sentences. If Pollard wants to get out of jail before his term is up, he can apply for parole--what kind of nutjob doesn't apply for parole? Why doesn't Netanyahu urge Pollard to apply for parole? There's a game being played here.

Y'know, we spy on them too. What kind of ally does that make us?

Here, Clarice, Cecil and Barny Frank embrace moral relativism. America gathers intelligence widely--it goes with our responsibilities. However, while most of our "allies" gather intelligence re the US, most--but not Israel--draw the line at actual espionage. But US concern over Israeli spying is what sparked US efforts, and that goes back far beyond Pollard.

Excellent article, although it doesn't cover the whole field: The Spy Who Loves Us

Interesting passage:

In June 2006, it was revealed that the Pentagon had begun to deny security clearances to American Jews who had family in Israel. Israelis seeking security approval to work for American defense contractors were also finding it increasingly difficult to obtain clearances. A Pentagon administrative judge overruled an appeal by one of the Israelis, stating, “The Israeli government is actively engaged in military and industrial espionage in the United States. An Israeli citizen working in the US who has access to proprietary information is likely to be a target of such espionage.”

Israel conducts much of its high-tech spying through its corporate presence in the United States. It is heavily embedded in the telecommunications industry, which permits access to the exchange of information. The Whitewater investigation revealed that President Bill Clinton warned Monica Lewinsky that their phone-sex conversations might have been recorded by a foreign government. That foreign government would have been Israel, where government and business work hand-in-hand in the high-tech sector, and many former government officials and military officers hold senior management positions. The corporations, in return, receive large contracts with the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces.

Two Israeli companies in particular—Amdocs and Comverse Infosys, both of which are headquartered in Israel—do significant business in the United States. Amdocs, which has contracts with the 25 largest telephone companies in the U.S. that together handle 90 percent of all calls made, logs all calls that go out and come in on the system. It does not record the conversations themselves, but the records provide patterns, referred to as “traffic analysis,” that can provide intelligence leads. In 1999, the National Security Agency warned that records of calls made in the United States were winding up in Israel. Amdocs also has an apparent relationship with some of the art students who were arrested in 2001. Several were provided with bond money by an Amdocs executive.

Comverse Infosys provides wiretapping equipment to law enforcement throughout the United States and also has large contracts with the Israeli government, which reimburses up to 50 percent of the company’s research and development costs. Because equipment used to tap phones for law enforcement is integrated into the networks that phone companies operate, it cannot be detected. Phone calls are intercepted, recorded, stored, and transmitted to investigators by Comverse, which claims that it has to be “hands on” with its equipment to maintain the system. Many experts believe that it is relatively easy to create a so-called “back door” that permits the recording to be sent to a second party, unknown to the authorized law-enforcement recipient. And Comverse equipment has never been inspected by FBI or NSA experts to determine whether the information it collects can be leaked, reportedly because senior government managers block such inquiries.

According to a Fox News investigative report, which was later deleted from Fox’s website under pressure from various pro-Israel groups, DEA and FBI sources say that even to suggest that Israel might be spying using Comverse “is considered career suicide.”

A number of criminal investigations using Comverse equipment have apparently come to dead ends when the targets abruptly change their telecommunications methods, suggesting at a minimum that Comverse employees might be leaking sensitive information to Israeli organized crime.

The chickens occasionally come home to roost. In 2002, Israeli espionage might have been directed against the U.S. Congress, which has so assidiously ignored Tel Aviv’s spying. Congressman Bob Ney, currently in prison for corruption, arranged a noncompetitive bid for the Israeli telecommunications company Foxcom Wireless to install equipment to improve cellphone reception in the Capitol and House office buildings. Foxcom, based in Jerusalem, has been linked to imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Telecommunications security experts note that equipment that can be used to enhance or improve a signal can also be used to redirect the phone conversation to another location for recording and analysis. The possibility that someone in the Israeli Embassy might be listening to congressmen’s private phone conversations is intriguing to say the least.

Some might argue that collecting intelligence is a function of government and that espionage, even between friends, will always take place. But the intensity and persistence of Israeli spying against the United States is particularly disturbing since Israel relies so heavily on American political and military support. Other allies like Britain, France, and Germany undoubtedly have spies in Washington, but there is a line that they do not cross.

[Step lightly.]

It's cattleguards, folks; just how hazardous even kim doesn't know.
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[rse]

Apparently interviews of Elizabeth Warren feature prominently in that barely seen Michael Moore film on "Capitalism".

If what I heard on the radio last week is typical of her thoughts, which makes sense given BO's adoration of her, we have a real problem here.

Can you imagine what the private conversations between Elena Kagan and Elizabeth Warren were like?

[lyle]

Can you imagine what the private conversations between Elena Kagan and Elizabeth Warren were like?

Boasting about the lengths of their penises?

[Sue]

Last night, on O'Reilly, Dee Dee Myers said O'Reilly described progressives using a conservative caricature. He then asked her to tell him what he said that was wrong. Her description of progressives was pretty much exactly O'Reilly's description, just cleaned up a little bit to try and obscure the harsh reality of what progressives really want and believe. They can't argue their true progressive ideas because the country would revolt. So they dress it up. I think Obama said it best. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

We won't be looking for these criticisms in the mainstream media - when the advocacy journalists cover the advocacy academics the results are predictable.

Advocacy?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Boasting about the lengths of their penises?

I wish I'd said that.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Her description of progressives was pretty much exactly O'Reilly's description, just cleaned up a little bit to try and obscure the harsh reality of what progressives really want and believe.

Good caricature depends on emphasizing the most obvious and memorable characteristics.

[Rob Crawford]

I wish I'd said that.

You will, Charlie, you will.

[Pofarmer]

Who's going to protect us from the gov't?