Warren could clash with Geithner as CFPB head
TEXT OF STORY
Bill Radke: The SEC has new responsibilities under the financial regulation overhaul
that President Obama will sign tomorrow. That law also creates a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Washington is buzzing about who the president will nominate to run it, as Marketplace’s Nancy Marshall Genzer reports.
Nancy Marshall Genzer: The frontrunner is Elizabeth Warren. She’s chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP, and when she held hearings on the bailout of AIG, Warren put Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on the spot.
Elizabeth Warren: Do you know where the money went?
Timothy Geithner: Uh, absolutely. And um . . . the money in that context went to help prevent default.
Geithner added the money helped prevent AIG from endangering the financial system. But Warren doesn’t believe banks should get too big to fail. Teddy Downey is a policy analyst with Concept Capital:
Teddy Downey: She’s more skeptical of big banks, that the more ways to knock down their size and restrict size the better off the consumer is. And so that’s one of the big disagreements that they have.
But will this lack of love between Geithner and Warren prevent her from being nominated? There have been reports that Geithner was opposing Warren. Although formally Treasury says she’s “exceptionally well qualified.”
In Washington, I’m Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.
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