Elizabeth Warren Won't Be Consumer Chief

Longtime Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren will not head the new consumer watchdog group she has helped create, reports Bloomberg. President Obama next week will appoint someone else to be the first director of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, which officially opens for business on Thursday. (The Wall Street Journal doesn't go quite as far, saying only that Obama "is not expected" to pick Warren.)

Because the appointment needs confirmation by the Senate, the agency will open without a director formally in place. As a result, it won't have full authority to go after shady mortgage brokers and the like, notes the Los Angeles Times. Republicans continue to push for structural changes to the agency, and the confirmation fight is likely to be volatile no matter who Obama picks. (More Elizabeth Warren stories.)