http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090210/tts-us-politics-obama-972e412.html
This means several rounds more of Lehman & similar HITS!
Obama turns on Wall Street
AFP
AFP - Wednesday, February 11
FORT MYERS, Florida (AFP) - - President Barack Obama accused Wall Street of seeking an "easy" way out of the financial mire Tuesday after the announcement of his new industry rescue plan sent stocks dipping sharply.
Instead of a pain-free rebound for debt-laden banks, Obama promised more "tough love," salting his remarks with populism on a barnstorming economic recovery tour to the Florida epicenter of the mortgage crisis.
The president also hailed a hard-fought personal victory as the Senate passed its 838 billion dollar version of his economic stimulus plan, setting up tough negotiations between both chambers in Congress over the final package.
"That is good, that is good news," Obama said. "It is a good start" as he announced the Senate move, at a town hall meeting here. Obama is pressing for lawmakers to send him a final bill by the weekend.
Later, Obama, exactly three weeks after his inauguration, had sharp words for the banking and finance sector following the release by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner of a new plan to clean its books of bad debts.
"Wall Street I think is hoping for an easy out on this thing and there is no easy out," Obama told ABC's "Nightline" program when asked about the markets' negative verdict to a new finance industry rescue plan rolled out Tuesday.
"Essentially what you've got are a set of banks that have not been as transparent as we need to be in terms of what their books look like," the president said in excerpts of the interview.
"What we've tried to do is to apply some of the tough love that's going to be necessary," Obama said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 4.62 percent and the Nasdaq dipped 4.20 percent after Geithner announced the plan that could deploy more than a trillion dollars but failed to deliver specifics.
Earlier, Obama sought to balance the announcement of what could be a politically dicey plan to support the bankers, with the promise of help for hard-pressed homeowners in the next few weeks.
"We know we are going to have to help homeowners, not just banks but homeowners as well," he said in Fort Myers, Florida.
"I know how frustrating it is for taxpayers when they're looking and they're saying, 'let me get this straight -- you've got a guy who's making 20 million a year who ran his bank into the ground, and now we've got to come in and clean up the mess?'"
But the president, who has been warning of economic catastrophe if Congress does finally clear the bill, cautioned the current dire situation still did not rank alongside the worst-ever US economic meltdown.
"Now, I think we've got to keep perspective. We're not going through the Great Depression," Obama told ABC.
"I know there have been some analogies there, but when (president Franklin Roosevelt took over in 1933) unemployment at that time was 30 percent, as opposed to 7.5 or 7.6 (percent)"
The next phase in his media blitz also became clear Tuesday as White House aides said Obama would address to a joint session of Congress on February 24, to formally lay out his agenda to lawmakers and the American people.
Obama's choice of this southwestern Florida city, a gateway to the Gulf of Mexico, was calculated.
In 2008, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area had the highest foreclosure rate in the United States, with 12 percent of home units being hit by a foreclosure-related notice, real estate groups said.
The Florida Association of Realtors says median house prices have fallen to a third of their previous rate, and now sit at just over 100,000 dollars.
The area has 10 percent unemployment, a rate that has tripled in two years, and the area shed 12,000 jobs in the past year.
Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs meanwhile said the president would turn up the political heat with his address to the House of Representatives and Senate on February 24.
First-year presidents usually do not give a full-scale State of the Union address. But in modern times, the address to Congress has become a feature of the symbolic first 100 days in office of new commanders-in-chief.
Tuesday's appearance followed Obama's first prime-time White House news conference on Monday and an earlier trip to economically blighted Indiana.
Thursday, Obama was set to stump in a jobs blackspot in his home state of Illinois.
This means several rounds more of Lehman & similar HITS!
Obama turns on Wall Street
AFP
AFP - Wednesday, February 11
FORT MYERS, Florida (AFP) - - President Barack Obama accused Wall Street of seeking an "easy" way out of the financial mire Tuesday after the announcement of his new industry rescue plan sent stocks dipping sharply.
Instead of a pain-free rebound for debt-laden banks, Obama promised more "tough love," salting his remarks with populism on a barnstorming economic recovery tour to the Florida epicenter of the mortgage crisis.
The president also hailed a hard-fought personal victory as the Senate passed its 838 billion dollar version of his economic stimulus plan, setting up tough negotiations between both chambers in Congress over the final package.
"That is good, that is good news," Obama said. "It is a good start" as he announced the Senate move, at a town hall meeting here. Obama is pressing for lawmakers to send him a final bill by the weekend.
Later, Obama, exactly three weeks after his inauguration, had sharp words for the banking and finance sector following the release by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner of a new plan to clean its books of bad debts.
"Wall Street I think is hoping for an easy out on this thing and there is no easy out," Obama told ABC's "Nightline" program when asked about the markets' negative verdict to a new finance industry rescue plan rolled out Tuesday.
"Essentially what you've got are a set of banks that have not been as transparent as we need to be in terms of what their books look like," the president said in excerpts of the interview.
"What we've tried to do is to apply some of the tough love that's going to be necessary," Obama said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 4.62 percent and the Nasdaq dipped 4.20 percent after Geithner announced the plan that could deploy more than a trillion dollars but failed to deliver specifics.
Earlier, Obama sought to balance the announcement of what could be a politically dicey plan to support the bankers, with the promise of help for hard-pressed homeowners in the next few weeks.
"We know we are going to have to help homeowners, not just banks but homeowners as well," he said in Fort Myers, Florida.
"I know how frustrating it is for taxpayers when they're looking and they're saying, 'let me get this straight -- you've got a guy who's making 20 million a year who ran his bank into the ground, and now we've got to come in and clean up the mess?'"
But the president, who has been warning of economic catastrophe if Congress does finally clear the bill, cautioned the current dire situation still did not rank alongside the worst-ever US economic meltdown.
"Now, I think we've got to keep perspective. We're not going through the Great Depression," Obama told ABC.
"I know there have been some analogies there, but when (president Franklin Roosevelt took over in 1933) unemployment at that time was 30 percent, as opposed to 7.5 or 7.6 (percent)"
The next phase in his media blitz also became clear Tuesday as White House aides said Obama would address to a joint session of Congress on February 24, to formally lay out his agenda to lawmakers and the American people.
Obama's choice of this southwestern Florida city, a gateway to the Gulf of Mexico, was calculated.
In 2008, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area had the highest foreclosure rate in the United States, with 12 percent of home units being hit by a foreclosure-related notice, real estate groups said.
The Florida Association of Realtors says median house prices have fallen to a third of their previous rate, and now sit at just over 100,000 dollars.
The area has 10 percent unemployment, a rate that has tripled in two years, and the area shed 12,000 jobs in the past year.
Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs meanwhile said the president would turn up the political heat with his address to the House of Representatives and Senate on February 24.
First-year presidents usually do not give a full-scale State of the Union address. But in modern times, the address to Congress has become a feature of the symbolic first 100 days in office of new commanders-in-chief.
Tuesday's appearance followed Obama's first prime-time White House news conference on Monday and an earlier trip to economically blighted Indiana.
Thursday, Obama was set to stump in a jobs blackspot in his home state of Illinois.
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