Below is a YouTube clip featuring Elizabeth Warren, the chair of Congress’ oversight panel of TARP (the Troubled Asset relief Program), the bailout started by Hank Paulson and passed by Congress. In it she talks about her fears regarding the lack of real regulatory reform in the world of finance and how this is setting up the destruction of the middle class in America.

Her argument about the shaking down of the middle class is the same one I made in the post about greed. She has long been a champion of the middle class. I recommend the compelling book she wrote with her daughter called “The Two Income Trap,” which gets at the heart of why middle class families have become so indebted in the United States.

I don’t think Warren is out to score political points (at least not against the Obama Administration as she is a Democrat). But, she is not convinced the Administration is committed to reform and has decided to speak out to help encourage a greater will to reform. To be fair, I should point out that progress on this front was made today in OTC derivatives. And Larry Summers has been waxing prosaically about the middle class as well. But, her depiction of earlier conversations with Tim Geithner are tellingregarding her worries (H/T Zero Hedge).