Top of the News: While Obama chief economic adviser Larry Summers was making millions giving speeches to the financial industry and shilling for a hedge fund, Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren was quietly studying the decline of the middle class. Her work wasn't always quiet in its findings: She led a breakthrough study a few years ago about the effect of inadequate health insurance in causing personal bankruptcies. Then Congress named her as chief watchdog of the bank bailout, and since then she's been at odds with the likes of Summers, Tim Geithner and their predecessors in the Bush administration.

Now Warren is warning Congress that the $700 billion bailout is at best producing mixed results, and it's relying on unrealistic economic assumptions. Her suggestion: Fire the top executives and carry out an orderly liquidation of the insolvent banks, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the story. You can read the congressional panel report here.

Warren has been outspoken in the need for more transparency in the way the Treasury and Federal Reserve are using taxpayer money to bail out large financial institutions. The need for this was underscored once we learned that bailout money for AIG went not only to bonuses, but also to "counterparties," many of which were already getting TARP money. This as average folks were facing deferred or destroyed retirement hopes as a result of the financial meltdown. Not surprisingly, she's critical of the Treasury's sudden desire to pump bailout money into insurers.