Somebody's been adding up the number of contacts Senator Warren has had with new Federal Reserve leader, Janet Yellen. The number isn't exact but it's already attracting attention.
Warren’s outsize presence in Yellen’s daybook is yet another indication that, while low in Senate seniority, the prominent bank critic commands significant attention from influential people. ...TheHill
Seniority isn't really an issue here. Nor gender. Except that many of us believe Elizabeth Warren is a far better informed critic of our form of capitalism than most, and Yellen has been shown to have a far more lucid grasp of where our financial system threatens to take us than we've seen. She is not, of course, a member of the loud, cantankerous, and crumbling good ol' boys' group ruling both houses of Congress.
Warren and Yellen aren't exactly buddies, though.
During a hearing last month, Warren accused one of Yellen’s top advisers, Fed general counsel Scott Alvarez, of being uninterested in implementing some portions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, forcing Yellen to defend the longtime Fed employee.
It may not all be adversarial, though. Warren has shown that she can be a pragmatist behind closed doors, according to emails from her first months at the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In the documents, she sometimes took a softer tone with the banks she vocally criticized in public.
Warren was also among a handful of Democratic lawmakers to publicly advocate for Yellen to take over for the Fed instead of Larry Summers, the president’s preferred pick. It is rare for lawmakers to publicly advocate for an individual before the president has made a selection. ...TheHill
Yellen, for her part, is no sucker. But she respects the role Congress is expected to play in oversight of the Federal Reserve and monetary policy.
