Consumer advocate to shape reg agency

WASHINGTON - In a poke in the eye to the financial community, President Obama on Friday named Elizabeth Warren, an aggressive consumer advocate and Wall Street adversary, to oversee creation of a new agency to regulate banks, lenders and credit card companies.

Sidestepping a Senate confirmation fight - for now - Obama stopped short of nominating Warren to actually head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Instead, his action will let the Harvard Law School professor and expert on bankruptcy move quickly to shape the bureau.

Senate Republicans view her as too critical of Wall Street and big banks. The business and banking community opposed Warren as director of the new bureau, contending she would make the agency too aggressive. Obama praised her highly.

"Never again will folks be confused or misled by pages of barely understandable fine print that you find in agreements for credit cards or mortgages or student loans," Obama said, standing alongside Warren and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the White House Rose Garden.

"Elizabeth understands what I strongly believe: that a strong, growing economy begins with a strong and thriving middle class," the president said. "And that means every American has to get a fair shake in their financial dealings."

Billed as a big help to abused consumers, the new bureau is charged with writing and enforcing new rules covering the largest banks to the smallest

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