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.