Will Elizabeth Warren Be Wall Street Consumer Watchdog?

 Will Elizabeth Warren fill the post for Wall Street Consumer Watchdog? According to the following article,Warren has served as chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, a watchdog group for the financial bailout program. She has been championed by many left-wing Democrats, who see her outspokenness, intellect and sarcastic sense of humor a perfect fit to police Wall Street's shenanigans. Sounds good to me!
   . . . June


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White House eyes Elizabeth Warren for Wall Street consumer watchdog post

By Kenneth R. Bazinet DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAUTuesday, September 14th 2010, 1:40 PM

WASHINGTON - The White House is considering its options for naming frontrunner Elizabeth Warren as the government's Wall Street consumer watchdog, sources told the Daily News Tuesday.

Warren has served as chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, a watchdog group for the financial bailout program. She has been championed by many left-wing Democrats, who see her outspokenness, intellect and sarcastic sense of humor a perfect fit to police Wall Street's shenanigans.

President Obama may still pick someone else to fill the post created by the new financial reform law. But he also is weighing whether to appoint Warren as temporary head of the Treasury Department's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or avoid Senate confirmation by giving her a recess appointment, according to an administration official.
"If we do it as a recess appointment...she's out a short time later. There may be a way to get her in there now," said an administration official.
Warren, a Harvard law professor who specializes in finance and bankruptcy law and has long backed the new watchdog agency, has some strong boosters, including Obama, who has known her since his days at Harvard Law School. There are also senior aides who like the idea.
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Additional $1 Billion to Stabilize Neighborhoods Hard-Hit by Foreclosure

 In addition to the original funding, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan awarded an additional $1 billion in funding to all states along with a number of counties and local communities struggling to reverse the effects of the foreclosure crisis. Let's hope that this works for those people who are still struggling.
    . . . June

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Obama Administration Awards Additional $1 Billion to Stabilize Neighborhoods Hard-Hit by Foreclosure
RISMedia: September 13, 2010

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan awarded an additional $1 billion in funding to all states along with a number of counties and local communities struggling to reverse the effects of the foreclosure crisis. The grants announced today represent a third round of funding through HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) and will provide targeted emergency assistance to state and local governments to acquire, redevelop or demolish foreclosed properties.

“These grants will support local efforts to reverse the effects these foreclosed properties have on their surrounding neighborhoods,” said Donovan. “We want to make certain that we target these funds to those places with especially high foreclosure activity so we can help turn the tide in our battle against abandonment and blight. As a direct result of the leadership provided by Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who played key roles in winning approval for these funds, we will be able to make investments that will reduce blight, bolster neighboring home values, create jobs and produce affordable housing.”

The funding announced today is provided under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. To date, there have been two other rounds of NSP funding: the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) provided $3.92 billion and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) appropriated an additional $2 billion. Like those earlier rounds of NSP grants, these targeted funds will be used to purchase foreclosed homes at a discount and to rehabilitate or redevelop them in order to respond to rising foreclosures and falling home values. Today, 95 cents of every dollar from the first round of NSP funding is obligated—and is in use by communities, buying up and renovating homes, and creating jobs.
State and local governments can use their neighborhood stabilization grants to acquire land and property; to demolish or rehabilitate abandoned properties; and/or to offer downpayment and closing cost assistance to low- to moderate-income home buyers (household incomes do not exceed 120% of area median income). In addition, these grantees can create “land banks” to assemble, temporarily manage, and dispose of vacant land for the purpose of stabilizing neighborhoods and encouraging re-use or redevelopment of urban property. HUD will issue an NSP3 guidance notice in the next few weeks to assist grantees in designing their programs and applying for funds.
Read on . . .

Financial Reform and Transparency in Hedge Fund Management

According to the article below, the Dodd-Frank Act seeks to restore trust and establish a sound regulatory framework for the financial services marketplace. It contains numerous components aimed at more transparency through the disclosure of relevant information and awareness of risk. Lets hope that it works that way.

   . . . June


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Press Release - Financial Reform Legislation and Transparency in Hedge Fund Management:
"September 11, 2010 /24-7PressRelease

With the economy sputtering, seeking to recover from the Great Recession that followed the financial meltdown of 2008, Congress worked for more than a year to develop comprehensive financial reform legislation. The result was the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which President Obama signed on July 21.

Dodd-Frank contains many features intended to require more transparency in financial transactions, so that elaborately packaged products do not create and disguise excessive risk that can harm unwary investors and consumers.

The concerns that led to the legislation reared their head during the 2008 crisis, but they had been building for years. Credit had been too easy to obtain for too many people. Subprime real estate loans, even for people with problematic credit histories or insufficient income, were the most obvious and egregious example. But the problems went beyond subprime loans. Investment banks and financial services firms package such loans and other forms of debt into numerous complex financial instruments that often were devoid of any transparency. And these same financial institutions took on more and more risk through credit default swaps and the use or ever-increasing leverage that placed the future existence of the institutions at great risk. Such risk is what led to the demise of investment banks like Lehman Brothers.

These financial problems infected the economy. Main Street, Wall Street and Washington spent much of 2008 and 2009 performing on-the-fly improvisation, trying to get credit flowing again in the midst of loan defaults, bankruptcies (including Lehman Brothers), rising foreclosures, high unemployment, and a huge government bailout of "too-big-to-fail" financial firms like AIG.

Read More . . .