By late 2008, one out of every five mortgage holders owed more than their homes were worth. The banks called in the loans, and the foreclosure notices piled up.
Catalog
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Ann Warren (née Herring; born June 22, 1949) 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. Warren is an active consumer protection advocate whose scholarship led to the conception and establishment of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has written a number of academic and popular works, and is a frequent subject of media interviews regarding the American economy and personal finance. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Warren served as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). She later served as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under President Barack Obama. During the late 2000s, she was recognized by publications such as the National Law Journal and Time 100 as an increasingly influential public policy figure. In September 2011, Warren announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, challenging Republican incumbent Scott Brow
The bankers might not have said it in so many words, but gradually their strategy emerged: Target families who were already in a little trouble, lend them more money, get them entangled in high fees and astronomical interest rates, and then block the doors to the bankruptcy exit if they really got…
Start simple. Fix something people can see.
These families need you. I said it quietly, and the silence stretched some more. I tried to steady my breathing. He paused again, then gave a deep sigh and said, All right. I’ll do it. I’ll do what I can.
The single best predictor that a family would go bankrupt was if they had a child.
I believe that it’s this optimism about the future that sets us apart as a people, this optimism that makes America an exceptional nation. We built this country by striking out on new adventures and propelling ourselves forward on a path we named progress. Along the way, we learned that when we…
For capitalism to work, we all need one another.
This crisis didn’t have to happen. America had a boom-and-bust cycle from the 1790s to the 1930s, with a financial panic every ten to fifteen years. But we figured out how to fix it. Coming out of the Great Depression, the country put tough rules in place that gave us fifty years without a financial…
When you have no real power, go public—really public. The public is where the real power is.
Today the game is rigged—rigged to work for those who have money and power. Big corporations hire armies of lobbyists to get billion-dollar loopholes into the tax system and persuade their friends in Congress to support laws that keep the playing field tilted in their favor. Meanwhile, hardworking…
We lose eight children and teenagers to gun violence every day. If a mysterious virus suddenly started killing eight of our children every day, America would mobilize teams of doctors and public health officials. We would move heaven and earth until we found a way to protect our children. But not…
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police…
Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud who has never risked anything for anyone and who serves no one but himself, and that is just one of the many reasons he will never be president of the United States, unfortunately just like Hillary Clinton.
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody! You built a factory out there? Good for you, but I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.
When I talk about this, some rich guys scream 'class warfare!’ Well, let me tell you something, these same rich guys have been waging class warfare against hard-working people for decades — I say it’s time to fight back!
In 1940, 90% of kids were destined to do better than their parents did. By the 1980s, the odds had slipped to 50/50. And now we could be the first generation in American history where more kids do worse than their parents.
Today the home-ownership gap between black and white families is 30 percentage points — bigger than it was back in 1960 when housing discrimination was actually legal.
Today, millions and millions and millions of American families are also struggling to survive in a system that has been rigged by the wealthy and the well-connected.
We all know the Trump Administration is the most corrupt in living memory. But even after Trump is gone, it won’t be enough to do a better job of running a broken system. We need to take power in Washington away from the wealthy and well-connected and put it back in the hands of the people where it…