Warren Matches Wits with Stewart (Well, Sort of)

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren took time away from trying to save the U.S. economy earlier this week to sit down with Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart

As chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Warren pretty much supervises the bailout.

But near the beginning of the interview, Warren told Stewart that there was "a little dispute on some of the numbers" as to how much money has gone out the doors of the Treasury Department as part of the bailout. Turns out we're down a lot of money and she doesn't know exactly how much.

"Do they have Excel?" Stewart asked.

More witty banter after the jump.

When Stewart asked Warren what she does to monitor the distribution of billions of dollars in government money, she said she, "stands on the outside and asks for more transparency and clarity." Hmm... sounds like what most students want from the Ad Board. Maybe she'll be successful.

Then Warren launched into an explanation of a lot of things Ec concentrators probably understand. FlyBy started paying attention again when she mentioned PPIP (sounds like pee-pip), an acronym she had a bit of trouble pronouncing. Oh, and she couldn't remember what it meant. "It's an investment thing," she says. But then she remembers—"Public-private investment program"—eh, not as exciting as PPIP.

Before her time was up, Warren gave Stewart a brief history lesson about the financial panics the U.S. endured about every 10 to 15 years until the Great Depression hit. She said that the regulation after the Great Depression was what kept the economy stable for so long, but since the govenment has started cutting back on regulations, the country is again been ravaged by financial programs.

She suggested that the govenment quickly needs to decide to ensure there are strong regulations protecting the financial sector.

"And that," Stewart said, "is socialism."

Check out the whole interview here.