Elizabeth Warren announced her bid for the Massachusetts Senate seat currently occupied by Republican Scott Brown (and formerly by Democrat Edward Kennedy) just over two weeks ago. Since then, she's obtained widespread support from top Democrats and has created a moderately viral video.

After several days of successful attempts by Republicans to block the formal debate over financial reform in Washington, the debate has now begun on the Senate floor. One person who will certainly have the Obama administration’s ear as it negotiates with members of the Senate and House over the bill is Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law professor and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel that keeps an eye on the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP fund.

 

The CEOs of the country's major banks came under a grilling yesterday, as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off hearings on the causes of last year's economic meltdown. We get reaction from Elizabeth Warren, who heads the group charged with overseeing the U.S. banking bailout, the Congressional Oversight Panel. 

All this week we'll be taking a look at how fine print in the lives of consumers affects our ability to get out of debt. We kick off the series with Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel of the TARP. Warren discusses her role with TARP, a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency and how the American middle class has been slowly buried under more and more fine print.

 

This month, the U.S. Congressional Oversight Panel released a new report that looks at how effective goverment efforts have been at stemming the tide of foreclosures. It questions whether the U.S. Treasury's strategies will lead to permanent mortgage modifications for many homeowners, and expresses concern about the limited scope and scale of the Making Home Affordable program.

We talk with the chair of the panel, Elizabeth Warren, and Brian Murphy, who knows from first-hand experience the difficulties of modifying a home loan .

A year ago this weekend, the U.S. financial system was teetering on the brink of collapse. As we approach the anniversary of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, we take a look back at the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008: the $700 billion federal effort to bail out the U.S. banking system. We speak with Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School professor and the chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel monitoring the bailout. (Read the full interview transcript, or check out all the stories in this series.)

Elizabeth Warren, the Chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel that monitors how the government spends its TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money, has spent her career advocating for the American consumer. She supports the administration's proposed consumer financial protection agency, saying that consumers need clearer descriptions of their credit cards' rules and of financial products that they might invest in. The Takeaway talks with Elizabeth Warren about her hopes for the new consumer protection agency.

Click through for transcript

Elizabeth Warren, Chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP and professor at Harvard Law School, continues her conversation with The Takeaway. Before she was monitoring government expenditure, she wrote several books on personal finance including, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan. So before she left we wanted to get her take on personal finance and how the nation's families are affected by tight credit markets.

Click here to hear Elizabeth Warren's discussion of TARP and her role overseeing the multi-trillion dollar fund.

To read an excerpt from Elizabeth Warren's book, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan, click here.

Try to imagine tracking $700 billion dollars as it moves out the doors of the United States Treasury Department and into the coffers of America's biggest banks. That's essentially the charge of our guest, Elizabeth Warren. Warren, the Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University, is the Chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, which watches where the TARP money goes. When President Obama talks about transparency, she's the one who helps make it happen. She joins The Takeaway in advance of a new TARP report due out today.

For more from Elizabeth Warren, click here for her interview on personal finance

Which banks will need more money? See our report card