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My Two Cents: Elizabeth Warren and Them Damn Politics!

Joel M. Berman
Sep 17, 2010

Sometimes, I wonder if Rome was burning again, would we have to fear Nero playing the fiddle or be more concerned with politicians in the background deciding which firemen to send to avoid a catastrophe. With more than 30 years combined experience as a mortgage broker, mortgage broker trade association president, and for the past 20 years, publisher of mortgage trade publications, I have never seen during that period, or for that matter throughout history, such a crescendo of economic missteps that have brought us to this moment in time. Today, the mother of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was appointed by President Barack Obama to the dual role of assistant to the President and special advisor to the Treasury Secretary. The semantics that developed to bring us to this auspicious moment was based on an inability to garner bi-partisan support to elevate Ms. Warren to the directorship of the newly created agency, the CFPB. What is even crazier, the ruling party and sponsor of the very bill that created the authority to establish this agency, Sen. Chris Dodd, cannot get past politics and do the right thing. As the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) rapidly approaches at sundown today, I will use this time to meditate and ponder the future of our wonderful United States. President Obama opened his press briefing to announce in a report released by the Census Bureau yesterday it reflected that between 2001 and 2009 the wages of middle class families went down five percent. I guess that was his way to say that most of the serious economic missteps did not happen on his watch. I just do not get it. Let us stop blaming the other guy and let's join together to extinguish the fire. Who knows, your house may be next one to go down in a fiery blaze!  
Published
Sep 17, 2010