:-)
Related: Wonder Woman
CAMBRIDGE - “That is just wrong. What I hate are banks that cheat people.’’
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Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, 60, was once a registered Republican who believed that most families who filed for bankruptcy or had their homes foreclosed were irresponsible. It was only after years of study, she said, that she determined that many families were not primarily at fault.
The youngest of four children, Warren grew up at the edge of a wheat field in what she called a “cheap little crackerbox on the end of town’’ in Norman, Okla. Her father had a series of financial reversals and became an apartment maintenance worker; her mother took telephone orders for Sears to bring in much-needed funds.
Living with three older brothers, she developed an assertive manner that led her to join her high school’s debate team, which in turn led to her winning the Oklahoma debating championship and a college scholarship. Married at 19, she had a young daughter by the time she entered law school and was pregnant with a second child when she earned her degree. A stint as a work-from-home lawyer was followed by teaching positions at Rutgers School of Law, University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania School of Law, leading in 1992 to her initial arrival at Harvard.
But Warren left Harvard after a year, due in part to what she called a “hostile environment’’ for women. Three years later, convinced that the environment had improved and desiring a bigger platform for her ideas, she returned to Harvard and has been there since.
She became a student favorite.... a Wonder Woman-type character who says, “If I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you.’’
Warren says she never envisioned herself as someone who would become a nemesis of corporate America. But after working on several bankruptcy studies, she concluded that most people who declare bankruptcy are undone by a combination of questionable banking practices and outsize medical expenses. She coauthored a book with her daughter, Amelia, called “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke,’’ which countered the belief that many families were squandering their money on unnecessary luxuries. She argued that many such families were going bankrupt and losing their homes to foreclosure because the cost of necessities had skyrocketed to unsustainable levels even when both parents worked.
But it wasn’t just statistics that shaped her view. For years, she pondered why her parents had gone from a seemingly secure middle-class existence to more difficult circumstances.
“It is a story like my own family’s story, of people who had the aspirations of the middle class, who often had ‘made it,’ had gotten a decent education, married, had kids, gotten good jobs, but something had gone wrong, and they were now on the economic down slope,’’ Warren said. As she described her parent’s financial difficulties, she said, “This comes from my heart.’’
By the time Warren returned to Harvard in 1995, she had switched her political affiliation to the Democratic Party because she was convinced that “the Republican Party had left me’’ and left behind the middle class. At the same time, she became an academic adviser to a congressional panel that was studying bankruptcy law. To her dismay, Congress in 1997 voted for a law that made it harder for families to declare bankruptcy. Determined to stop the measure, she met then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Using charts and forceful language, Warren won over Clinton, who got her husband to veto the bill.
But in 2005, Congress once again approved the measure, with support from many moderate Democrats, and President Bush signed the law. In Warren’s view, the imposition of tougher bankruptcy laws made it more difficult for many people to forestall foreclosure on their home loans and played a role in the subsequent financial meltdown.
Yes, America, YOUR DESTRUCTION was a PLANNED EFFORT!
Warren met Obama at a fund-raiser for the future president’s campaign for US Senate in Illinois. Obama had heard about Warren and approached her, greeting her with the phrase: “Predatory lending.’’
Obama then spoke at length about why he wanted to go to Washington to stop financial institutions from cheating consumers. Warren sought to reassure the future president that he didn’t need to convince her.
“You had me at ‘predatory lending,’ ’’ she said.
So when did he lose you?
