Bill Clinton: “Well, I don't comment on the Fed's decisions, and I don't comment on the market's movements, so I shouldn't talk about…”

“Well, I don't comment on the Fed's decisions, and I don't comment on the market's movements, so I shouldn't talk about the Fed Chairman's comments about the market's movements. [Laughter] Nothing I say will produce any good. I think the answer to your second question is the same--I'll tell you an interesting story. You know when the market fell in '87, by blind accident, when the market closed, the then-wealthiest man in America, Sam Walton, was sitting in my office in Little Rock, in the Governor's office, just by pure coincidence. He was there on business. He came in to see me, and we were sitting there at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, or whenever it was, and the market closed in New York. So he called, and I said, ``Sam, how much money did you lose today?'' He said, ``A billion dollars, on paper.'' And I said, ``What do you think about it?'' He said, ``I think tomorrow I'm going to get in my airplane and fly to a little town in Tennessee where they're opening a new Wal-Mart, and if the pickups and the cars show up and people get out and buy goods, America's all right. This is a Main Street economy.'' So I say to you, I'm very pleased that not only wealthy people but a lot of middle class people have made a lot of money in the markets. A lot of people's retirements are more secure because of it. I'm proud of the vibrant markets we have. They will change. They go up and down; they always do. My job is to keep the underlying fundamentals sound so that tomorrow, in all those little towns all across America, people can get up and go to work and go to the store and buy something. If that happens, I think we'll be okay.”