A Fighting Chance

Raj Date had established a successful career in banking, but then he did something that was considered pretty unusual in the banking circles: He started a think tank and wrote long, technical papers about everything he thought was wrong with the banking system. During the previous months, he had also joined forces with the AFR to help fight for a strong consumer agency, and now Raj was going to set up our research and regulatory work. And Peter Jackson, who had done a great job handling press at COP, agreed to take on the same role for the new agency.

Right from the start, we were all working flat out. We would do interviews and meetings from early morning until late at night, then head back to our respective apartments and do our homework to get ready for the next day. We were drafting the agency’s basic design—the architecture that would shape its work for decades. We met with other agency heads and with the consumer groups and financial institutions that would be most affected. I scheduled regular meetings with Secretary Geithner and his staff to keep them up-to-date on our progress.

As the CFPB began to take shape, there was a fair amount of press coverage, most of it about the new agency’s work. But one tiny piece appeared in late October that took me by surprise.

NEW PAINT JOB—We also hear that while Warren is out west, her Treasury office is getting a makeover (Warren will have digs both at Treasury and the CFPB’s L Street headquarters). That’s something of a rarity for Treasury officials, who usually leave their offices as-is. There is much internal debate as to exactly what color it is that is going up on Warren’s walls. One person called it “Arizona sunset,” another “terra cotta.”



A headline the next day took Treasury to task for the leak: ARE TREASURY’S KNIVES COMING OUT AGAINST ELIZABETH WARREN? The reporter called the item “petty.” (You think?) But he also noted that there had been a series of nasty little items leaking from Treasury since I’d arrived, all aimed at painting me “as an ego-centric fluff-monger, not a serious policymaker.” Oh, yuck.

I tried to think about how the article had come about. A Treasury employee had come by and offered to schedule my office for routine repainting; he showed Alyssa and me a book with some colors and we had picked one. The conversation was short, and I could barely remember it in the flurry of those early weeks.

After the story appeared, Secretary Geithner called. We didn’t have a scheduled meeting, so this was a surprise. He was direct: I’m sorry about the story about painting your office.

I brushed it off, but the secretary was insistent. No, he said, he was really sorry. It was wrong.

He obviously had nothing to do with the article, but he knew that someone in his vast department was to blame. Treasury employed a lot of people, and the secretary couldn’t possibly know what they were doing every minute of every day. Nonetheless, he told me there would never be another nasty leak about me while I was trying to do my job. He said, “I give you my word on that.”

I knew Tim hadn’t chosen me for this role. I knew I had been pushed on him by the president. And I had begun to understand that he could probably take me down with carefully placed traps and leaks if he wanted to. But when he gave me his promise, I believed him.

I don’t know what Tim did, and we never spoke of it again, but I don’t remember there ever being another nasty leak.

Welcome to the World, A-Mann

In late October, I was scheduled to give a lecture at Berkeley about the new agency. The day of the speech, I got the call I’d been waiting for.

Amelia was thirty-seven weeks pregnant, and the baby would wait no longer. Wonder of wonders: after all those months of worrying that he would be born prematurely and be too small to survive, when he came into the world he was chubby! Weighing in at a solid eight pounds six ounces, he had pudgy thighs and a round little tummy. I don’t think I’ve ever been so delighted about a roll of fat in my entire life.

Bruce and I flew to Los Angeles the next day. We wrapped the baby in a pumpkin costume—what else would a chubby Halloween baby wear?—and took the girls out trick-or-treating.

I love Halloween—dressing up, trick-or-treating, handing candy out at the door. (Confession: I have a real weakness for Mounds.) One year Lavinia talked me into becoming “the Sparkle Queen,” complete with a pink glitter wig—all so that I would complement her “Sparkle Princess” costume. (Fortunately, I believe all the relevant photos from that Halloween have been deleted.) I’ve also been a lost sheep for her Little Bo Peep. This year we dressed up as a rose (Lavinia), Cleopatra (Octavia), a pumpkin (tiny baby brother), the Mad Hatter (Bruce), and Robin Hood (me, tongue firmly in cheek).

The baby was named Atticus Mann Tyagi, after Bruce (Mann). Bruce didn’t say much—that’s just his way—but I could tell he was proud as punch. He and A-Mann were now a team.





Nothing Personal