Elizabeth Warren is definitely not running for president, but we can still appreciate her work in Congress. Her interview in Fortune is fantastic.
Some of my favorite bits in the article:
Why she liked Teddy Roosevelt’s perspective on monopolies:
You know, when I was in law school, they taught us that monopolies were wrong because they hurt price competition. They were a market failure that hurt consumers, and that of course, was true. So you needed to break them up. But if you read Teddy Roosevelt on this – his principle push for breaking up the trusts was because they had too much political power. They overwhelmed the government. It wasn’t so much that they were stronger than government, but they could persuade government to shift the rules to make themselves even more powerful. And when that happens, it’s not just a threat to the economy. It’s a threat to democracy.
On higher ed:
For instance, it is outrageous that the federal government today spends billions of dollars helping college students get an education, and asks for almost no accountability for the colleges themselves. It is a scandal.
For-profit colleges account for roughly 10% of all college students, but they account for 25% of federal student aid dollars, and almost 50% of student loan defaults. They target minorities and they target veterans. The Lowell campus of the University of Massachusetts is trying to help veterans who have been targeted by these schools. They’ve seen vets entering U-Mass with as much as $65,000 in student debt and not one single college credit that can transfer to a real school. These young people are already starting in a hole.
Three things that government should do to invest in the middle class:
First, invest far more in education.
Second, rebuild our infrastructure, both to put people to work immediately in better paying jobs, but in the long run, to help our economy because strong infrastructure is what encourages businesses to invest and grow. China is investing 9% of its GDP in infrastructure. Here in the US, we are investing about 2.5%….
Third, research. I’d invest in research. Medical, scientific, engineering and the reason for that, this is an exceptional country. The investment here would be much smaller than the other two. But it’s the great pipeline of ideas that creative people build off of to turn the research into something extraordinary.
Apt. 11d 
Well, but we learn from history, at least some of us, and one of the things we learn is that a lot of Progressive ideas didn’t work very well. So harking back to Teddy Roosevelt isn’t very persuasive. In particular, we have learned that establishing regulatory bureaucracies does not enhance individual freedom at the expense of large enterprises. Instead, regulatory capture ensures that existing enterprises are entrenched and a privileged class is established which shuttles between the corridors of state power and well-paying positions at big enterprises. (Not wholly unlike Elizabeth Warren, I might note.) We have also learned that the Baptist/bootlegger coalition does not necessarily produce optimal alcohol control policy. So I predict that the CFPB, Elizabeth Warren’s baby, will (i) create lots of work for well-paid lawyers and bureaucrats, who will shuttle between positions in government, academia, and the financial sector, (ii) entrench the market position of the big banks, (iii) increase the cost of consumer credit, and (iv) expand the amount of illicit and unregulated loan sharking. Predictions (i) through (iii) are based, inter alia, on the ICC, and (iv) is based on Prohibition.
But for those who want to keep doing the same thing, in the expectation of different results, Elizabeth Warren is The One.
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We have learned that you can create regulatory bureaucracies that don’t work and that even the ones that do work aren’t always perfect. But a great many regulatory bureaucracies have enhanced individual well-being and markets do not stay free outside of state power.
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it’s hard for me to imagine that Warren could win nationally, she is even left-er than Obama, the race fraud thing cuts against her (‘Princess Fauxcahontas’) and she has never run anything. McMegan took her bankruptcy research apart and it didn’t look good – that would come back and hurt her anywhere but California and Mass and RI. I think having been a governor will be worth a fair amount in the next election. So nominating her would be handing the Reeps a big advantage, and in a contest which is likely to be pretty close. Dems who want to win will try and keep this from happening. And she is having a lot of fun pushing people around and being lefter-than-thou, why should she give this up for something so difficult and chancy?
Now, if the Reeps nominate someone who is as far right as Warren is left, maybe. But, if say Bush or Walker or Kasich is nominated I would be surprised if Warren won. The Dem bench is pretty thin, they really have no good options except Clinton.
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