text of Barack Obama's speech at Cooper Union in New York, as prepared for delivery and provided by his campaign.
I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg for his extraordinary leadership. At a time when Washington is divided in old ideological battles, he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions. Not only has he been a remarkable leader for New York –he has established himself as a major voice in our national debate on issues like renewing our economy, educating our children, and seeking energy independence. Mr. Mayor, I share your determination to bring this country together to finally make progress for the American people.
In a city of landmarks, we meet at Cooper Union, just uptown from Federal Hall, where George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States. With all the history that has passed through the narrow canyons of lower Manhattan, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the role that the market has played in the development of the American story.
The great task before our Founders that day was putting into practice the ideal that government could simultaneously serve liberty and advance the common good. For Alexander Hamilton, the young Secretary of the Treasury, that task was bound to the vigor of the American economy.
Hamilton had a strong belief in the power of the market. But he balanced that belief with the conviction that human enterprise “may be beneficially stimulated by prudent aids and encouragements on the part of the government.” Government, he believed, had an important role to play in advancing our common prosperity. So he nationalized the state Revolutionary War debts, weaving together the economies of the states and creating an American system of credit and capital markets. And he encouraged manufacturing and infrastructure, so products could be moved to market.
Hamilton met fierce opposition from Thomas Jefferson, who worried that this brand of capitalism would favor the interests of the few over the many. Jefferson preferred an agrarian economy because he believed that it would give individual landowners freedom, and that this freedom would nurture our democratic institutions. But despite their differences, there was one thing that Jefferson and Hamilton agreed on – that economic growth depended upon the talent and ingenuity of the American people; that in order to harness that talent, opportunity had to remain open to all; and that through education in particular, every American could climb the ladder of social and economic mobility, and achieve the American Dream.
In the more than two centuries since then, we have struggled to balance the same forces that confronted Hamilton and Jefferson – self-interest and community; markets and democracy; the concentration of wealth and power, and the necessity of transparency and opportunity for each and every citizen. Throughout this saga, Americans have pursued their dreams within a free market that has been the engine of America’s progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and opportunity for generations of Americans. A market that has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery.
But the American experiment has worked in large part because we have guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle. Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest. We have done this not to stifle – but rather to advance prosperity and liberty. As I said at NASDAQ last September: the core of our economic success is the fundamental truth that each American does better when all Americans do better; that the well being of American business, its capital markets, and the American people are aligned.
I think all of us here today would acknowledge that we’ve lost that sense of shared prosperity.
This loss has not happened by accident. It’s because of decisions made in boardrooms, on trading floors and in Washington. Under Republican and Democratic Administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.
Nor is this trend new. The concentrations of economic power – and the failures of our political system to protect the American economy from its worst excesses – have been a staple of our past, most famously in the 1920s, when with success we ended up plunging the country into the Great Depression. That is when government stepped in to create a series of regulatory structures – from the FDIC to the Glass-Steagall Act – to serve as a corrective to protect the American people and American business.
Ironically, it was in reaction to the high taxes and some of the outmoded structures of the New Deal that both individuals and institutions began pushing for changes to this regulatory structure. But instead of sensible reform that rewarded success and freed the creative forces of the market, too often we’ve excused and even embraced an ethic of greed, corner cutting and inside dealing that has always threatened the long-term stability of our economic system. Too often, we’ve lost that common stake in each other’s prosperity.
Let me be clear: the American economy does not stand still, and neither should the rules that govern it. The evolution of industries often warrants regulatory reform – to foster competition, lower prices, or replace outdated oversight structures. Old institutions cannot adequately oversee new practices. Old rules may not fit the roads where our economy is leading. There were good arguments for changing the rules of the road in the 1990s. Our economy was undergoing a fundamental shift, carried along by the swift currents of technological change and globalization. For the sake of our common prosperity, we needed to adapt to keep markets competitive and fair.
Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one – aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight. In doing so, we encouraged a winner take all, anything goes environment that helped foster devastating dislocations in our economy.
Deregulation of the telecommunications sector, for example, fostered competition but also contributed to massive over-investment. Partial deregulation of the electricity sector enabled market manipulation. Companies like Enron and WorldCom took advantage of the new regulatory environment to push the envelope, pump up earnings, disguise losses and otherwise engage in accounting fraud to make their profits look better – a practice that led investors to question the balance sheet of all companies, and severely damaged public trust in capital markets. This was not the invisible hand at work. Instead, it was the hand of industry lobbyists tilting the playing field in Washington, an accounting industry that had developed powerful conflicts of interest, and a financial sector that fueled over-investment.
A decade later, we have deregulated the financial services sector, and we face another crisis. A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business has changed. But by the time the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.
Since then, we have overseen 21st century innovation – including the aggressive introduction of new and complex financial instruments like hedge funds and non-bank financial companies – with outdated 20th century regulatory tools. New conflicts of interest recalled the worst excesses of the past – like the outrageous news that we learned just yesterday of KPMG allowing a lender to report profits instead of losses, so that both parties could make a quick buck. Not surprisingly, the regulatory environment failed to keep pace. When subprime mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn, a patchwork of regulators were unable or unwilling to protect the American people.
"we need to address not only the immediate crisis in the housing market; we also need to create a 21st century regulatory framework, and pursue a bold opportunity agenda for the American people. "
This guy can talk ALL day long and say absolutely nothing. Standing on your head and talking about regulation will not eliminate the FED or remove the stranglehold that the globalists have on us. This "bold opportunity agenda" will it bring back our factories from overseas ? Much will be said this election season but absolutely NOTHING will change, for the better that is.
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john riggs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 297 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 11:26:48 AM
For an economy that has never been based on anything but faith and hope, this guy seems able to provide those two ingredients. What more can a sane person ask for?
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Daniel Geery (26 articles, 55 quicklinks, 121 diaries, 651 comments)
on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 10:09:40 AM
Did read the artical completely? things like this are more t
Did read the artical completely? things like this are more than blah, blah, blah from a guy who could well be the next president.
"Beyond these short term measures, as President I will be committed to putting the American Dream on a firmer footing. To reward work and make retirement secure, we’ll provide an income tax cut of up to $1000 for a working family, and eliminate income taxes altogether for any retiree making less than $50,000 per year. To make health care affordable for all Americans, we’ll cut costs and provide coverage to all who need it. To put more Americans to work, we’ll create millions of new Green Jobs and invest in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. To extend opportunity, we’ll invest in our schools and our teachers, and make college affordable for every American. And to ensure that America stays on the cutting edge, we’ll expand broadband access, expand funding for basic scientific research, and pass comprehensive immigration reform so that we continue to attract the best and the brightest to our shores."
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ALONE (97 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 196 comments)
on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 11:12:44 AM
I do have to admit--Paul krugman wasn't impressed either
I do have to admit--Paul krugman wasn't impressed either
click here Krugman says that only Clinton, by offering to revive a NEW DEAL era program to aid homeowners whose debt is higher than the value on their homes, has offered anything substantial to what McCain and Obama have offered. (However, her hubbies close relationship to financial sector is troubling.)
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ALONE (97 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 196 comments)
on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 11:36:20 AM
I am very disapointed in this speech. I think it does nothing for his credibility.
YOYO AND WIITH or what ever it is called is catchy but it has no milage at helping the people caught in foreclosure.
At least Bush thtew pennies at us in the form of a tax stimulus package. Woefully stingy funding probably borrowed from the Chinese. But it was concrete. Obama fives us an catchy words
All this speech did was help McCain. How disappointing.
siriusss
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siriusss (4 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 68 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 11:44:51 AM
"Deregulation of the telecommunications sector, for example, fostered competition but also contributed to massive over-investment. Partial deregulation of the electricity sector enabled market manipulation. Companies like Enron and WorldCom took advantage of the new regulatory environment to push the envelope, pump up earnings, disguise losses and otherwise engage in accounting fraud to make their profits look better – a practice that led investors to question the balance sheet of all companies, and severely damaged public trust in capital markets. This was not the invisible hand at work. Instead, it was the hand of industry lobbyists tilting the playing field in Washington, an accounting industry that had developed powerful conflicts of interest, and a financial sector that fueled over-investment. "
THIS IS BLAH BLAH BLAH???? It is the best analysis of the reason we have a stock market crash, in a few words, that I have ever read. It is clear, concise and full of meaning. It points the way to a solution. The whole speech is like that. Those who think Obama just talks apparently never finished the 6th grade. Obama is one of the most brilliant men in America, and as he said (paraphrasing) if we continue to vote for alcohol sodden retxxds like Bush and McCain, nothing will ever change.
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Antonio (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 44 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 12:35:02 PM
Even an eighth grade graduate like myself can see that printing money will never fix this economy. Hard money is ALL our constitution allows. The privately owned FED privately owns ALL the three candidates. Obama is dubya with a little brains, making him even more dangerous. If You wish to fall for more demo lies be my guest, but dont ask me to believe this snake-oil salesman. The only change that will save us is silver and gold, not more hot air from a professional politician (read professional liar).
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john riggs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 297 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 1:41:04 PM
Just what America needs more regulation on utilities.
With Obama in charge there will be Dark days ahead both figuratively and literally. With his plan to hand out money to the Blacks and his re-regulation of electricity (price), the dollar will no longer have any value and even if it did there would still be no electricity when he is done.
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Gallaher (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 401 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 2:12:17 PM
Wow! Why George Dubya didn't snatch up a bigoted, race baiting fear monger like you to be on his "TEAM" I'll never know!!!! Just a little wake up call, "Blacks" aren't the only ones suffering in this economy that need a "hand-out" as you put it. But maybe you're so busy planning the next klan rally hate fest you haven't noticed.
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enid dennis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 8:19:35 PM
And have you forgotten about Enron ??? "The Smartest Guys in the Room" Guess you never heard of public goods, Mr. Reactionary Right Winger... or the public good for that matter.
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macdon1 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 54 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 9:07:26 PM
Rural electrification program of 1930s 1940s and 1950s
Rural electrification was run much better and was more helpful than any big NATIONAL SECURITY PATRIOT office created in the last few years.
Don't paint all regulators and federally financed electrical firms with the same paint and brush.
What I read in the speech states that he wants an enforcing oversight office--no simply more burocracy as Bush/Cheney love to build at taxpayers expense
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ALONE (97 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 196 comments)
on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 11:25:38 AM
Come on, the media beats on him as though he were a red-headed step- child. What do they have to fear? I mean, Hillary and her republicans just hammer him on about everything.
He does answer the questions at hand unlike the repubs that dance around and dodge the answers.
And, another chunk of ?Antartica broke off, size of Rhode Island. To think DC could be under water. Make them provide their own wet suits like our soldiers had to do with body armour in the beginning of the Iraq "quagmire". Attn Congress & Execu.: if you go under water, call "Brownie". heh heh heh heh heh.
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shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 152 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 12:51:06 PM
Mr. Obama is superb. As a macro-economist, his knowledge could be placed in a match box and have room to stretch out.
The U.S. currently has $99.2 trillion in unfunded debt that is growing daily. Our total GDP (including government spending) is $14 trillion and shrinking.
The first of America's boomers are now drawing money from the pay window for social security, and in 3 years from Medicare. That is a line that is 17 years long and 78 million deep.
Medicare will begin taking in less money than it pays out; this year!
I'm waiting for Mr. Obama to tell me how these problems will be fixed in his next flowery speech. I'm sure it will start, "Can't we all get along." NO.
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Mike Folkerth (82 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 410 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 1:14:04 PM
Don't blaim Obama for the misspending of this and past
Obama--I am not necessarily voting for him--did not make 0.00000000001% oof this problem. If he did, his share is nothing compared to those who have allowed the federal government to hide debt and borrowing for foreign wars etc. in the trillions.
The money payers have put in social security will last till 2042. The sins of this administration will bus us before then.
What about the guy who had his house foreclosed on?
What about the single mother who saw her job shipped over seas?
What does the "Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International Accounting Standards Board, and the Financial Stability Forum " have to do with them?
Can they take regulation of the telecom industry to the bank to renegotiate the terms of their mortgage ?
Who was it that Obama was directing his speech to?
He may have the perfect grasp of what happened to the world economies but he has NO grasp of what people need in their everyday life to survive this ecomonic crash!
I don't give any of them a break on this. Not Hillary Not John McCain and certainly not Obama.
The American people don't need to give any one running a break. We need solid answers . Someone needs to give US a break!
Americans don't need another elitist leader who does not understand what life is like living pay check to pay check
siriusss
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siriusss (4 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 68 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 1:31:52 PM
What the heck, I'll say something although it won't make any difference. As long as our goverrnments(Federal, State, Local) continue to increase their cost and power, our economy and quality of life will continue to deteriorate.
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E J Antunez (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 1:48:39 PM
Please note, there must be a pause between every three to five words for effect.
After his intro.
Hello America… there is hope…There will be change…
I took... a walk... today… ... I’ve seen… the cracks… in the side walk… ...I’ve seen… the street signs… that are leaning… ....When I got… to the end… of my road… ...I saw… the next street… had... no side walk… So, I… walked… on the curb… And as... I walked… on the curb… ...I noticed… it had cracks… When I got… to the end… of that road… The… next road… did not… have a curb… I continued… to walk… until… I came… to a sign… that said… I... could not... walk... ...NO PEDESTRIANS… it said…
Pause as the croud goes wild. Make sure your supporters are up front and start the cheer when you don't speek for more than two seconds no mater what you say.
There… is hope… There will… be change…
So, now we will have people walking up and down our nations freeways getting slaughtered when hit by cars doing 70mph.
Yea, Thanks Obama, Thanks for the great speech.
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Gallaher (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 401 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 2:46:16 PM
If you folks are going to give up on social improvement so easily maybe you should just take your semi auto and go play russian roulett. This was a pretty good speech. It was still a campaign speech, thats where we are. If we were willing to elect somebody who was going to promise to abolish the Fed and take on the international banking cartel we would have nominated Ron Paul or Mike Gravel, and might even be looking at a corpse. Anybody who promises to modernize regulation (can't live with it, can't live without it) and try to stimulate job creation while trying to create class equity in taxation has my attention. Will we undo 30 + years of sick thinking in one presidential term? Of couse not. But start somewhere or go home. If you still have one.
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Torus (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 6:19:07 PM
This hack speech should erase any doubts about who Obama will be running errands for.
Barack Obama on the dole:
Goldman Sachs $421,763
Ubs Ag $296,670
Lehman Brothers $250,630
National Amusements Inc $245,843
JP Morgan Chase & Co $243,848
Sidley Austin LLP $226,491
Citigroup Inc $221,578
Exelon Corp $221,517
Skadden, Arps Et Al $196,420
Jones Day $181,996
Citadel Investment Group $171,798
Time Warner $155,383
Morgan Stanley $155,196
Google Inc $152,802
University of California $143,029
Jenner & Block $136,565
Kirkland & Ellis $134,738
Wilmerhale Llp $119,245
Credit Suisse Group $118,250
Never mind that Obama voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations. Or that Obama claims to oppose the introduction of single-payer national health insurance on the grounds that such a widely supported social-democratic change would lead to employment difficulties for workers in the private insurance industry—at places like Kaiser and Blue Cross Blue Shield.
“I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.”
- Barack Obama, speaking to the masters of “American” finance capitalism at the headquarters of NASDAQ, Wall Street, New York City, September 17, 2007
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coyote (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 65 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 6:29:01 PM
