Political Quotes

“Mr. President, he will elaborate on these provisions, but I want to put up my third chart because at the hearings my colleague had focused attention on a real challenge. Through those hearings some have observed that Goldman Sachs has become an ``iconic image of bankers with conflicts of interest.'' Let me try to again address that. If you are selling fireworks, you should not be in the business of designing bad fuses to put on those fireworks and then betting the fireworks will go off accidentally or, as another person has put it, if you are selling cars, you should not be selling cars without brakes and taking out insurance on the owners. That fundamentally undermines the integrity of the market, whether it is the fireworks market or car market. But those are analogies for our financial market. Integrity is so important. International capital flows to systems with integrity. It was after the Great Depression that we established reforms on Wall Street that led to decades in which the international community saw the American markets as the best organized, best policed safe place--no scams or minimal scams--that they could put their money. We want Wall Street to be able to continue to attract and aggregate and allocate that capital. That is an essential function.…”