Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, a federal bailout watchdog, and a likely nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is not a popular name on Wall Street. But, in what may be an example of bankers keeping their enemies close, the Harvard law professor is set to be the guest speaker at a Financial Services Roundtable event.
Politico's Morning Money has the invitation to the Financial Services Roundtable Leadership Dinner, which features Warren's name prominently in the middle of the page. According to Politico, the invitation says the event, set for September 29 in Washington D.C.'s Mandarin Oriental Hotel, "promises to be both exciting and rewarding. We will have several presentations concerning Community Services and Financial Literacy followed by our dinner speaker, Professor Elizabeth Warren, Chair, Congressional Oversight Panel."
Warren, who devised the CFPB in 2007, and who would serve as its first head, wrote in February in the Wall Street Journal that bankers and brokers-- the people who will listen to her speak on the 29th -- were "financial wizards," comparing them to bank robbers and accusing them of "looting from middle-class families."
The Financial Services Roundtable, for its part, is "the premier executive forum for the leaders of the financial services industry," according to its Web site. Seating charts for the dinner will doubtless be carefully designed.