Posted on 09/14/2009 10:42:33 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (AFP) US President Barack Obama on Monday warned Wall Street it must not return to the "reckless behavior" and "unchecked excess" which he blamed for unleashing the global financial crisis.
The president, in a major economic speech at the heart of the mighty US financial system just blocks from the New York Stock Exchange, laid out a wide ranging prescription for rebuilding the US finance system.
He said the crisis was a "collective failure" of Washington, Wall Street and across America, vowed to press G20 powers for action on regulatory reform, and cautioned top executives not to squander public trust with huge bonuses.
One year after the fall of Lehman Brothers sparked global financial contagion, Obama warned that there were those in the finance industry who were misreading the lessons of the crisis.
"They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation's," Obama said at historic Federal Hall in Manhattan.
"So I want them to hear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses.
"Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall."
He also called on senior Wall Street moguls to promote a new culture of responsibility in their firms, before approving massive bonus payouts.
"You don't have to wait for legislation to put the 2009 bonuses of your senior executives up for a shareholder vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Of course you cant ever take away the risk/ Loop holes not to be closed?.
"If Obama was the answer, it must have been a really stupid question."
ROTFLMAO
Can you get more ridiculous?
Obama should warn Frank: no more bending over backwards.
Do you know if the speech can be downloaded to an Ipod? The queen’s collection will be incomplete without this one.
Don’t forget Robert Rubin...a big muckety-muck at Citi during the bubble who had earlier been Clinton’s Treasury Secretary. A commercial bank with an investment bank inside leveraged 40 to 1. Look behind the fridge and you will find lots of Democrat roaches on Wall Street who were running the lerverage scam when it blew up.
Actually, although much of the other stuff he said was bilge, this one sentence does make sense. We should never have bailed out the banks the first time around.
That said, what about government responsibility for setting up situations where banks are forced to operate in unwise fashion (e.g. forcing them to give mortgages to people who were likely to default)?
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