Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, this week marks the meltdown of Lehman Brothers, and the 5-year anniversary of the greatest financial crisis in a generation that struck our country. This economic disaster nearly caused the destruction of our country's entire financial infrastructure and led to what we now call the Great Recession. However, Wall Street, during the last 5 years, has actually profited greatly from this crisis and, in the process, has caused continuing financial failures of millions of Americans. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley have all reported record profits during the recession. {time} 1045 Wall Street, in the last 5 years, has regained all of its pre-crisis wealth with interest. Wouldn't the American people like to be in that position? Meanwhile, Main Street has yet to see a real robust recovery. The roots of the recession began in the late 1990s, when a majority in this Congress first overturned something called the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated speculative banking from prudent banking and then, in 2000, refused to regulate the trading of derivatives. By hamstringing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission, Wall Street turned once stable investments into the toxic assets that brought down our economy.…”