American Academia, Bastion of Disinterested Inquiry

Elizabeth Warren seems pretty great, doesn't she? Given the financial industry came very close to creating another Great Depression, we could really use someone in a position of power whose main concern is the well-being of the middle class.

OR COULD WE?!? Here's some guy named Thomas Cooley to explain why we're so wrong:

She suggested a Financial Product Safety Commission in a 2007 article in the magazine Democracy. President Barack Obama proposed it to Congress in June as the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Warren won’t discuss whether she may be a candidate to lead the authority, which would have the power to regulate $13.7 trillion of debt products. A Warren nomination would tell banks that Obama is determined to force reduced checking-account fees and limit lender claims in mortgage advertising, among other measures the industry opposes, said Thomas Cooley, dean of New York University’s Stern School of Business.

“She is an ideological crusader,” Cooley said in an interview. "She is a person who will stir up a lot of trouble.” In a column in Forbes magazine, Cooley accused her of "waging a self-righteous holy war."

Thomas Cooley...where have I heard that name before? Oh yeah:

NYU Stern announced today that alumnus John Paulson (BS ’78), founder and chairman of hedge fund Paulson & Co., Inc., has given a gift of $20 million to NYU Stern. John Paulson’s gift will endow two faculty chairs – the Alan Greenspan Chair in Economics and the John A. Paulson Professor of Finance and Alternative Investments...

"We are extremely grateful for John’s support,” said Thomas F. Cooley, dean of NYU Stern. “His generous gift will not only further strengthen Stern’s research capability...it will also help us provide our students with a modernized learning environment..."

Mr. Paulson is a leading financier and founder of New York-based Paulson & Co., one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world.

John Paulson (no relation to Hank) famously made $4 billion dollars for himself (and $20 billion for his hedge fund) betting against the mortgage market, Lehman Brothers, etc. (He also hired Alan Greenspan as a consultant in early 2008, so presumably Greenspan has personally made a lot of money off the financial panic.)

Anyway, when you've made $4 billion thanks to lack of regulation, I'm sure it's worth spending 0.5% of that to buy a yappy little poodle to whizz all over the shoes of anyone who advocates regulation.

(For an example of another particularly well-behaved New York City poodle, see here.)

—Jonathan Schwarz