What Jane Says: Government

Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren dreamed up the idea of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Congress authorized as part of Wall Street reform. She campaigned for it tirelessly and understands the issues better than anyone else. She’s the most qualified person, by far, to become its first director – the one that will [...]

You can’t turn your back on Congress for a minute. Just when you think an issue will be settled in favor of investors, a Senator oozes under the door and slides a quick pro-business, anti-investor change into a bill.
That’s how the equity-indexed annuity — a costly product with a woeful past — slipped out of the [...]

Consumers won. Banks lost. That summarizes the consumer piece of the financial reform bill.
On the other part of the bill that affects individuals, my verdict flips. Investors lost, Wall Street won.
Taking the consumer side first, color me thrilled that Congress created a potentially strong Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. When President Obama proposed it last [...]

What angers me most about Wall Street’s shady dealing and greed is that that they like to blame the national meltdown on their customers. You’ve heard their sniffy defense: People took mortgages they couldn’t afford, lied to lenders about their incomes and deserve whatever they got. The poor li’l ole mortgage [...]

I’ve praise the Senate financial reform bill here for imposing a fiduciary duty on stockbrokers. And I praised Maine Senator Susan Collins for wanting to extend that duty to brokers who sell to institutions such as pension funds and mutual funds.
Wow, did I ever speak too soon. Last week, Collins declared herself in favor of gutting [...]

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"In the five years I have been with the organization, I have never before seen the audience give any speaker a standing ovation." — Ceramic Tile
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Jane’s Book Club

“The Big Short." You'll find no better book for explaining how toxic mortgage investments brought down the economy. Lewis is a great storyteller. You watch the disaster unwind through the eyes of four unforgettable investors who saw that these loans had to fail and invested accordingly.
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Jane’s Bio

Jane Bryant Quinn is a nationally known commentator on personal finance, with books and columns read and trusted by millions.
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