Elizabeth Warren: We need a modern Glass-Steagall

Elizabeth Warren (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Elizabeth Warren, candidate for Massachusetts Senate, is the hot ticket for financial reporters today, by virtue of the fact that she's just about the smartest person on financial reform out there since she chaired the congressional oversight panel on TARP from 2008 to 2010, and led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2010 to 2011, after having fought successfully for the agency to be part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Beyond that, she can talk about financial reform both with authority and in a way that makes it completely understandable.

She made news first by calling for Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, to resign his position on the board of the New York Federal Reserve in response to the news that his bank lost more than $2 billion in one set of trades.

That's not all she's talking about today, though. In an email to supporters, she makes the case for Congress to implement a modern Glass-Steagall law, to keep banks from being able to speculate with depositors' money.

A new Glass-Steagall would separate high-risk investment banks from more traditional banking. It would allow Wall Street to take risks, but not by dipping into the life savings and retirement accounts of regular people.

And by making banks smaller, a new Glass-Steagall could also help put an end to banks that are "too big to fail"'further avoiding costly taxpayer bailouts.

She follows up that thought in an interview with Ezra Klein.

Klein: [W]hen I talk to people in the industry about this, they say that simple rules sound great, but they're not really possible. It's hard to distinguish a hedge from a bet, or a speculative trade from a legitimate one. The world is complex, and that's why regulators and politicians who don't like Wall Street and don't like being browbeaten by lobbyists end up allowing complex rules, too.

Warren: Here's another way to look at what you just described: That's the strongest argument for a modern Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall said in effect that hedge funds should be separated from commercial banking. If a big institution wants to go out and play in the market, that's fine. But it doesn't get the backup of the federal government. If it's too complicated to implement the Volcker rule, do you say we give up and let the largest financial institutions do what they want? Or do you say maybe that's the reason we need a modern Glass-Steagall?

This is precisely why defeating Elizabeth Warren is the number two priority for Wall Street (after defeating President Obama)'because she's fiercely committed to simply evening the playing field for American consumers, and because she's proven how capable she is at getting results. She wants to make sure that we're not losing all our savings when the banks go crazy, and that we're not paying for it a second time in taxpayer-funded bailouts. That's completely unacceptable to Wall Street.

Join with Warren in calling for Dimon's resignation from the New York Fed, and help her beat Wall Street by helping her get elected. Please contribute $3 to Elizabeth Warren on Orange to Blue.