Elizibeth Warren on CNBC this morning - posted 1:45 pm

Link to article on CNBC here
No Escape from TARP as Things Stand: Warren

Published: Thursday, 14 Jan 2010 | 8:12 AM ET
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By: Antonia Oprita
Associate Web Producer, CNBC.com

Even when the TARP program will be finished, it will not actually end, because the market has now gotten used to the idea that institutions that are too big to fail will always be bailed out, Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional panel for overseeing the TARP, told CNBC Thursday.

"The whole market has adjusted to the notion that the big boys will be safe no matter what," Warren, who is also a professor of law at Harvard, told "Squawk Box."

Changing this will require changing the rules, either by breaking up the big banks, regulating or taxing them more, or forbidding them to engage in certain activities, she explained.

"You can make it smaller, you can make it more expensive to be a big financial institution. If you're getting this guarantee, why shouldn't you pay for it," Warren said.

The US Treasury will own billions of dollars worth of financial assets when the TARP program is over and has not set clear principles for disposing of them, the Congressional Oversight Panel's monthly report showed.

"If we lose less money under TARP than we had originally projected, that's two thumbs up and God bless… but the point is, at the end of the day, when the TARP is over, it's not really over," said Warren.

"The implicit guarantee is now huge and it destroys any other potential competitive activity. This is what we have to wind back out of."

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