This morning, a loyal reader sent us a post from banking publication American Banker’s editor-in-chief, Neil Weinberg, who wrote a “myth vs. fact” piece on Elizabeth Warren’s talking points on the economy and banking from the Democratic National Convention. While the Peak typically focuses on Colorado issues, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to highlight this article because Warren’s misleading statements have been driving the talking points on the left nationwide, and in Colorado.
Warren, the self-described “mother of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” told a few whoppers at the DNC. Here are her particularly egregious points, plus Weinberg’s attempt to set the record straight.
A few of our favorites from American Banker:
Warren: “The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. 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.”
Reality check: Demanding favors? Like the labor unions that helped push General Motors and Chrysler over the brink and then got the president to help cut in front of bondholders during a taxpayer-funded bailout? Or the class action lawyers who get rich suing job-creating corporations and then funnel some of the spoils to the Democratic Party?
Warren: “President Obama gets it because he’s spent his life fighting for the middle class. And now he’s fighting to level that playing field.”
Reality check: Obama fighting to level the playing field? With a Fed chairman whose near-zero interest rate policy is hurting retirees and other savers while rewarding the profligate—most notably Uncle Sam? Even Neil Barofsky, the former Tarp Special Inspector General who is quite fond of Liz Warren, has blasted the Obama White House and Treasury Secretary for lying to the American people and disguising a giant-bank bailout as a homeowner rescue.
Warren: “After the financial crisis, President Obama knew that we had to clean up Wall Street.”
Reality Check: Obama’s cleaned up Wall Street? Who’s gone to jail, Ms. Warren? In the wake of the tech bust a decade ago, George W. Bush’s Justice Department went after the deposed bosses at Enron, WorldCom and Tyco and put them in jail. President Obama’s Justice Department has taken a pass on the likes of Jon Corzine of MF Global, Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial and the boatload of cads who ran places like AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Or, as Neil Barofsky said to me recently, given the “trillions and trillions of dollars of value that have been wiped out … it certainly seems like there should have been a rampant area for potential fraud cases.”