Elizabeth Warren. (photo: AP)

It’s a message she’s been taking all over the country, and she isn’t afraid to call banks, credit card companies and some employers cheats and tricksters.

“The biggest financial institutions figured out they could make a lot of money by cheating people on mortgages, credit cards and payday loans,” she told a packed auditorium at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she spoke alongside New York Times (NYT) columnist Paul Krugman.

The Democrat from Massachusetts even said the market is broken in many regards.

“This is about getting markets to work for real people,” she said.

The biggest applause of the night was on three issues that come up frequently in Warren’s speeches.

1) Financial regulation: Warren was the driving force behind the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the 2008 financial crisis. The agency has returned billions of dollars to Americans who were wronged.

“Traffic works better with traffic lights,” she explained.

In her eyes, a true capitalist system would have transparency so consumers could make informed choices. […]