Obama calls for watchful eye on markets

Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Author: Andrew Coen, Investment News.com

Calling our current economic crisis a function of “greed and irresponsibility on the part of some” but also placing responsibility on “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age,” President Obama addressed the nation minutes after taking the oath of office installing him as 44th president of the United States.

He lauded the free market as having the “power to generate wealth and expand freedom” but cautioned that “without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”

In the days leading up to his inauguration, Mr. Obama and his team have pitched an $800 billion economic-stimulus plan that would involve tax cuts and job creation that would address infrastructure needs such as roads, bridges and electric grids.

“The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product but on the reach of our prosperity, on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity but because it is the surest route to our common good,” he said after he was sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts a few minutes after noon.