Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Ann Warren is an American academic and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party, and is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts. Warren was formerly a professor of law, and taught at the University of Texas School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and most recently at Harvard Law School. A prominent scholar specializing in bankruptcy law, Warren was among the most cited in the field of commercial law before starting her political career...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth22 June 1949
CityOklahoma City, OK
CountryUnited States of America
Women tend to vote the economic interests of their families and to speak out on family economic issues. For men, there's often much more focus on the idea of personal failure: "If I'm not winning this great economic game, it must be my fault."
We [US government] have used our taxpayer dollars not only to subsidize these banks but also to subsidize the creditors of those banks and the equity holders in those banks. We could have talked about forcing those investors to take some serious hits on their risky dealings. The idea that taxpayer dollars go in first rather than last - after the equity has been used up - is shocking.
The need for comprehensive reform must not blind us to the urgency of addressing the massive debt that's already crushing our young people.
Refinancing won't fix everything that's broken with our [American] higher education system. We've got to bring down the cost of college. And we need more accountability for how schools spend federal dollars.
Student loan debt is crushing young people. And so they're not doing the things we would expect them to do. They're not moving out of their parents' homes in as big a numbers, they're not saving up money for down payments, they're not buying homes or cars or starting small businesses or doing any of the things that help move this economy forward.
Credit cards are like snakes: Handle 'em long enough, and one will bite you.
When you have no real power, go public - really public. The public is where the real power is.
The poor pay more, and that's one of the reasons people get trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder.
I'm really concerned that too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial.
Some of the largest financial institutions can build a profit model on tricking people.
I'm still very connected to my family, to the world I grew up in. I understand what it means to be afraid that you can't pay a doctor's bill. Or to have to make the choice between buying a band uniform for a seventh-grader and making the insurance payment on time. That will never leave me. It was how I lived until I was well into my adult years.
The game is rigged to work for those who already have money and power.
I get heartfelt thanks from all kinds of people. Today I heard from a waitress in Georgia who has lost her job and is trying to figure out how her local bank can change the terms on her credit card, and I heard from a physicist at a major research university who wants to explain a better theory of financial stress tests.
Part of my job is to make sense of all that I hear, and to retell it in a forceful way so that the decision-makers at Treasury can hear it. At least that's how I see it.