Warren vows end to “tricks” with consumer agency [Reuters]
“Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren said on Friday she accepted the job of setting up a consumer financial protection agency for U.S. President Barack Obama and declared that the time for financial ‘tricks and traps’ was over.
Obama was expected to announce his appointment of Warren, a Harvard University professor and hero to liberal activists, at 1:30 pm EDT, taking a step forward in enacting the financial reform that is a signature achievement of his presidency.”
Final Seal Set for BP Well [WSJ]
That wasn’t so bad. “After five months, the BP PLC well that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is on the verge of being plugged for good.
A relief well drilled nearly 2.5 miles beneath the floor of the Gulf has intersected BP’s blown-out well, a prelude to permanently killing it, the U.S government said late Thursday.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the oil spill, said in a statement that data show the two wells are joined. The next step will be to pump mud and cement down through the relief well to seal the ruptured well from the bottom.
The final seal should happen by Sunday, five months after an explosion killed 11 workers, sank a drilling rig and led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.”
Re-Branding at PricewaterhouseCoopers — OMG, It’s Like Totally Awesome! [Re:Balance]
Jim Peterson’s analysis on PwC’s new look takes a bit of a different angle, “When the accounting profession’s very survival rests on the ability to sell a basic core product – assurance on financial information – the essence of that delivery is the maintenance of confidence among issuers and users in consistent, solid and predictable quality service.
That has been more than challenge enough, in difficult times for the profession. But its messages can and should be pretty stolid. A slightly boring orthodoxy is not a bad thing, when the profession is the only one that requires two terms to describe itself and its core offerings: accountant and auditor – contrasted with, for example, doctor, lawyer, priest or engineer.”
When Job-Interview Questions Become Too Personal [The Juggle/WSJ]
Things you shouldn’t have to answer: 1) “Do you plan to have a family any time soon?” 2) “I love your accent; where are you from?” 3) “Are you currently using birth control?”
PwC: To Invest Around $100 Mln On China In 3-5 Years [Dow Jones]
“PricewaterhouseCoopers plans to invest an estimated US$100 million in China over the next three to five years on overall operations including recruiting and training staff to meet the country’s growing appetite for more sophisticated financial services, said a senior executive of the global accounting firm.
‘We see great opportunities in China. The world is coming out of recession and emerging markets like China and India have done so much better than mature markets,’ Nora Wu, lead partner of PwC’s Shanghai office, told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Tianjin.”
Mitch McConnell, the Bush Tax Cuts, and the Future of Government [TaxVox]
“Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to permanently extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts. He’s also rejected even modest efforts by President Obama to restrain the growth of Medicare. He is opposed to efforts by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to control future Pentagon spending. And he favors a constitutional amendment that would require a balanced budget. It all got me wondering: What would such a McConnell government look like?”