Senator Professor Elizabeth Warren went in front of the Roosevelt Instituteto give a speech yesterday. She was not fking around, either.

In April 2011, after a two-year bipartisan enquiry, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 635-page report that identified the primary factors that led to the crisis.The list included high-risk mortgage lending, inaccurate credit ratings, exotic financial products,and, to top it all off, the repeated failure of regulators to stop the madness. As Senator Tom Coburn, the Subcommittee's ranking member, said: "Blame for this mess lies everywhere from federal regulators who cast a blind eye, Wall Street bankers who let greed run wild, and members of Congress who failed to provide oversight."Even Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has emphasized inadequate regulation as a source of the crisis. He wrote this to his shareholders: "had there been stronger standards in the mortgage markets, one huge cause of the recent crisis might have been avoided. The crash happened quickly and dramatically, and it caught our nation and apparently even our regulators by surprise. But don't let that fool you. The causes of the crisis were years in the making, and the warning signs were everywhere.

Yes, in fact, they were.

Where are we now on the "Too Big to Fail" problem? Where are we on making sure that the behemoth institutions on Wall Street can't bring down the economy with a wild gamble? Where are we in ending a system that lets investors and CEOs scoop up all the profits in good times, but forces taxpayers to cover the losses in bad times? After the crisis, there was a lot of discussion about how Too Big to Fail distorted the marketplace, creating lower borrowing costs for the largest institutions and competitive disadvantages for smaller ones. There was talk about moral hazard and the dangers of big banks getting a free, unwritten, government-guaranteed insurance policy.Sure, there was talk, but look at what happened: Today, the four biggest banks are 30% larger than they were five years ago. And the five largest banks now hold more than half of the total banking assets in the country. One study earlier this year showed that the Too Big to Fail status is giving the 10 biggest US banks an annual taxpayer subsidy of $83 billion. There are many who say, "Sure, Too Big to Fail isn't over yet, but Congress should wait to act further because the agencies still have to issue a bunch of Dodd-Frank's required rules." True,there are rules left to be written, but that's because the agencies have missed more than 60 percent of Dodd-Frank's rule making deadlines. I don't understand the logic. Since when does Congress set deadlines, watch regulators miss most of them, and then take that failure as a reason not to act? I thought that if the regulators failed, it was time for Congress to step in. That's what oversight means. And that's certainly a principle that would have served our country well prior to the crisis. So let's put the pieces together: 1. It has been three years since Dodd-Frank was passed, the biggest banks are bigger than ever, the risk to the system has grown, and the market distortions have continued. 2. While the CFPB has met every single statutory deadline - so we know it's possible to get the job done - the other regulators have missed their deadlines and haven't given us much reason for confidence.3. The result is that the Too Big to Fail problem remains.

Yes, in fact, it does.

We should not accept a financial system that allows the biggest banks to emerge from a crisis in record-setting shape while working Americans continue to struggle.

No, in fact, we should not.

And we should not accept a regulatory system that is so besieged by lobbyists for the big banks that it takes years to deliver rules and then the rules that are delivered are often watered-down and ineffective. What we need is a system that puts an end to the boom and bust cycle. A system that recognizes we don't grow this country from the financial sector; we grow this country from the middle class.Powerful interests will fight to hang on to every benefit and subsidy they now enjoy. Even after exploiting consumers, larding their books with excessive risk, and making bad bets that brought down the economy and forced taxpayer bailouts, the big Wall Street banks are not chastened.They have fought to delay and hamstring the implementation of financial reform, and they will continue to fight every inch of the way.

Yes, in fact, they will.

The problem, of course, is that the speech instantly was wedged into the Warren-v-Clinton, Mrwowwwrrrrrrrrr, Catfight! narrative that was launched by that stupid New Republic story. That way, people don't have to confront the fact that Warren was calling out the power of plutocracy to bend and pervert democracy to its will, and that, no matter who the president is, or will be, the government should do everything it can to fight that distortion with every weapon at its disposal. She really isn't in this to be president. She's in this to assure the rest of us that the right asses will be kicked as often as possible. She can do that in the Senate. She can do that anywhere. Eye on the ball, people.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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