Posted on 05/04/2009 11:51:06 AM PDT by llevrok
WASHINGTON – Wall Street is not going to play as dominant a role in the economy as regulations reduce "some of the massive leveraging and the massive risk-taking that had become so common," President Barack Obama says.
The changes in the role of Wall Street and the huge profits that came from that risk-taking could mean other adjustments as well, Obama said in an interview in this week's New York Times Magazine.
"That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy," he said. "I actually think that's healthy. We don't want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design."
"Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy, just as it was in the '70s and the '80s," he said. "It just won't be half of our economy."
Obama said he expects that government efforts to fix the economy will cause long-term changes.
"What I think will change, what I think was an aberration, was a situation where corporate profits in the financial sector were such a heavy part of our overall profitability over the last decade," he said.
Obama said he's confident that people will regain trust and confidence in the financial system, but he believes it will take time.
"I think it's important to understand that some of that wealth was illusory in the first place," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What next, a KdF Wagen for all with Obambi’s mug painted on it?
Expect to see the word "FREE" disappearing from rhetoric on a graduated scale during this presidents tenure.
Der Leader hath spoken!!
And the company you work for will be capitalized, not by shareholders, but by your tax dollars.
Interesting concept. We will tax you to raise funds to capitalize a company that you can work for.
Adam Smith is spinning in his grave.
problem being those companies will be operating in an another country..NITWIT.....*noting the collective WE*
You will be a Street Sweeper of the City. - ANTHEM
The strength of our country does not come from smart people thinking up items like "credit default swaps", it comes from smart people making both civilian and military products. When an enemy comes after us, we are not going to fight back with "leveraged buyouts" we need cruise missiles and smart bombs.
Now, Obama is certainly not helping our defense industry either, but getting more engineers into civilian roles is at least a half step in the right direction.
As I recall it, Smith-Corona made a lot of rifles in WWII in their typewriter factory.
Civilians working in all kinds of industries can be rapidly transferred to military applications -- an awful lot of technology is dual-use.
But if the big salary bucks come from the financial sector, we get too many bankers and not enough mechanical/aeronautical/ciivl engineers.
The man's a dolt!
Though this statement is true, most people in the financial sector are primarily salesmen. They usually don't have the mathematical/scientific knowledge needed to be an engineer. That takes years of study in hard sciences and then more study keeping up with the latest innovations. It's not so easy to jump from the financial sector to engineering.
I guess we better add the crescent and sword to the hammer and sickle. No room on the flag any more for stars and stripes.
Wall Street IS playing a role in many people’s life savings and retirement funds. Does Obama care?
Obummer: “That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy,” he said. “I actually think that’s healthy. We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.”
This is so ridiculous that it is bordering on stupidity. Who the heck does he think is doing this work now?
Indians and the Chinese NO LESS. Americans are just dumb fools who want nothing but for an easy buck. I mean it people this man is insane. He has NO CLUE!!!! And is unable to make a rational decision. Very, very scary.
Quants in wall street usually have PhDs in Math, Physics or Engineering.
You are right about that, but current pay scales do a lot toward "programming" college students into various fields.
If bankers earn 3x what engineers do, smart people gravitate to banking. Reverse that, and we will have a lot more engineers.
I have worked defense and I have designed & built stuff that has had a big role in taking out a lot of enemies of the US. If I had been just starting college 5 years ago, I would have headed toward finance. Maybe someone else would have taken my place, maybe not. We would have lost a lot more people in Iraq without a lot of the engineers we have today.
i think you misunderstand — Obama wants “green” missiles :P
and by the way for the sake of this thread — not all of finance deals purely with pushing paper. For example, oil fields can actually be valued or priced as though they were financial options — a type of a financial investment/asset. Finance in terms of its intellectual development as well as the practitioners who spend their days pricing assets is necessary in order that the free market makes sure assets are priced as well as possible to allow all sorts of assets to be properly priced. With properly priced assets, businesses and buy and sell these assets and that’s how our economy. Its not just pure lending and borrowing.
But yes, other parts of the economy such as industry are very important as well as they produce the actual goods. Finance has its role for pricing. Engineering has its role in producing. Everything has its role.
More likely Europe than China. Unlike China and now the US, they have reliable legal systems. Wonder if anyone told BHO this will mean a tad less tax revenue too
Wow. Just like Soviet Russia. The All Powerful One will decide what career path you take.
It's not healthy for me to puke 8-10 times a day.....I wonder if the statist health plan will cover that.
FMCDH(BITS)
seems he has a HUA problem!
Very few will want a life of being laid off, outsourced, and offshored. They will either get government jobs working for the NSA or move out of the country, like to the Cayman Islands, to continue work they used to do in high tax Manhattan. Obama is on track to destroy Manhattan far more than the 9/11 terrorists did.
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