Elizabeth Warren has written in the Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2010, a challenge to JP Morgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, among the other denizens of Wall Street:

Wall Street's Race to the Bottom: Jamie Dimon is wrong. We shouldn't expect a crisis 'every five to seven years’.

Ms. Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School -- where she teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law. She also is the chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel. In her WSJ commentary, she advocates for the creation of a cleaner consumer financial protection agency than currently exists (actually nothing really exists) among the seven or eight federal departments, commissions, and oversight entities responsible for the financial fiasco.

Basically, Ms. Warren argues that Wall Street has to "earn back" the trust of the American public. The "or else" part of the challenge is that a Consumer Financial Protection Agency will become the big cop on the block to re-establish order in the Wild West that we call the financial community.

As I read the mornings’ headlines, I’m swept up in the media frenzy favoring a children’s obesity task force. Wow and golly gee!

So, it is with great relief that I turn to Ms. Warren’s much more substantive commentary: finally, someone at least has an argument on the subject of these regulatory proposals and the courage to stand up and speak out. Finally, there is someone (and it just happens to be an impressive woman at that) who is willing to address one of the regulatory proposals on the merits.

How many other organizations are there out there giving lip service to consumer protections, to financial controls, to fiscal oversight? My hat’s off to Elizabeth Warren for standing up, speaking up, and keeping the fire burning for some intelligent measures to re-establish the lost credibility that pervades Wall Street.