Obama on US economic crisis: ‘The fire is now out’
Published: July 21, 2009
Updated 3 days ago
WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama defended his administration’s response to the economic crisis over the last six months, declaring: “The fire is now out.”
“I think that we have stepped back from the abyss. I think we’ve put out the fire,” he said in an interview with PBS, according to a transcript released by the TV station.
But Obama, who is facing declining popularity ratings for the first time in his presidency, said a lot remains to be done to fix the recession-mired US economy.
“The analogy I use sometimes is, we had this beautiful house. And there was a fire. We came in and we had to hose it down. The fire is now out, but what we’ve discovered is, we need some new tuckpointing, the roof’s leaking, the boiler’s out, oh, and by the way, we’re way behind on our mortgage,” Obama said
The work that remains will be undertaken with “the limited resources” that are available, and will take time, Obama said.
“Nobody’s more mindful than I am of the difficult, difficult times that people are feeling right now,” he said.
In touting his administration’s response to the crisis, the president pointed to the financial regulation he hopes to impose to prevent some of the unchecked activities that contributed to the economic freefall.
“The problem that I’ve seen, at least, is you don’t get a sense that folks on Wall Street feel any remorse for taking all these risks; you don’t get a sense that there’s been a change of culture and behavior as a consequence of what has happened.
“And that’s why the financial regulatory reform proposals that we put forward are so important,” Obama said.
But he added that he did not regret his administration’s decision to fund loans to a number of big financial firms deemed too important to the functioning of the financial system to be allowed to collapse.
“If we didn’t stop the bleeding in the financial system, then it would have been even worse for everybody… That I don’t have second thoughts about,” he said.
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I hope this isn’t Obama’s “Mission Accomplished”.
Oh, sorry, beachcomber. I will strive to be like you, whom I presume is, in fact, worthy to eat Obama’s shit.
Did you get your serving today? If not, I can Fedex my load over to you as I haven’t had it yet this morning. Just post an address.
Abe, i hope everything works out for you in the end.
TMI
The fire is out??!!!! ROTFLHAY!!!
Shit hasn’t even begun to hit the fan yet. That healthcare bullcrap will be what pushes the dollar off the cliff.
Part of me cant wait until the collapse. Maybe then we can put the Bill of Rights back together.
Is this like the Green Shoots?
Too bad this is like a tire fire that smolders forever…
LOL! “The fire is out” my ass.
Obama is just another tool of the elites..
After giving Wall Street a hand job, he’s now working to enrich the Health-Industrial-Complex before he pivots neatly to service the multi-nationals and vested interests with Cap & Trade.
For some, yet unknown, reason, blacks still support this POS to the tune of 97%.
A wake up call is coming for many.. The irony is, his failure and the disappointment in racial politics it engenders, may actually help drive our society towards post racial status.
Just realizing that a black man will function as a goalie for the PTB’s just as happily as a white will have a lasting effect on blacks who worship him by virtue of his skin color alone. And 97% approval is exactly that, worship.
It’s going to end.. He’s cutting his own legs out from under him even as we type.
After you incinerate something there is nothing left to burn.
He didn’t get a chance to finish his dumb sentence before the mesmerized crowds began cheering. What they didn’t hear were the last two words: “…of control.”
Too bad Bush poured so much gasoline on the house before he torched it. No way to put that one out. I believe it is still burning. It won’t be out until unemployment abates, and that will be some time from now.
Unless you are committed to completely redefining the failing economic system you are living under at the moment, then all we are doing is kidding ourselves. Putting band-aids and propping up the current, failed economic system is not the answer- it only perpetuates the problem.
To tackle the problem of corporate greed, Wall Street crooks, and a failed healthcare system requires ripping these weeds out by the roots and replanting anew. Simply dumping fertilizer on it will only make it smell even more like shit.
We’re out of fire trucks. We can’t afford them anymore.
Haha. You’re such a fayg. Bush is your butt buddy.
And you are a brainless moron who has nothing better to do than come on here and spew worthless shit that contributes to nothing.
Why don’t you crawl back into whatever hole you came out of asshole and do the rest of us a favor. Thanks.
Hmmm…. gay bashing, too afraid to actually spell “fag” and stunningly wrong.
Independent defined what is wrong with this country. How does that make him a Bush ‘butt buddy”?
Probably more projection. All you’ve talked about up here has to do with ass. Freud would have a field day.
Too bad Bush poured so much gasoline on the house before he torched it.
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With the help of the Bush-accomplice Dems. You left that part out. That’s being objective, not D-partisan like you, and you claim to be an “independent?” Yeah sure you are. A Dem kool-aider charading as an “independent.”
Bush and Cheney would not have accomplished most of their agenda without the full complicity and enabling of the Bush-accomplice Dems in congress. They were not required to repeatedly vote “yes” for the Bush agenda. They did so willingly.
Moron-
I am not a democrat as you so desparately wish. Obviously you haven’t a clue as to what you are talking about. While their were certainly dem enablers (and I have already acknowledged that in the past-don’t need to now), they weren’t the once who filled the gas can, splashed the house, ignited the flame, and ran off while the fire engines hit the scene.
Many dems did oppose him- not all. Those who voted with him should be removed from office.
You should be removed from this board for making assinine assumptions about who I am.
He is so full of crap……….no fire is out. He’s robbing Peter and not even paying Paul! And he lies just like his predecessor. Laying it all on his Wall St. buddies is a laugh. This man is a large part of the problem, hes talking about saving the hens after the fox got them already. When he should have put up a fence earlier. What about all his banking buddy staff he surrounds himself with? Are the banks ready to pay up on their big derivatives hole that amounts to endless zeros? He put you in eternal debt saving crooks, tossing money around like water and has the nerve to tell you “the fire’s out”. WHERE? He’s still spending which tells you that “The other man’s money spends real good.” He’s planning and pushing a windfall for insurance co’s and higher taxes, at your expense in healthcare and yet refuses to even look at single payer plan that will cut expenses and costs dramatically and give you decent healthcare. This man is a kook, just like the last one.
It seems strange to me that he would say this, knowing that now if things aren’t perfect, it will be used against him ad nauseum.
I feel for the guy. He stepped up to the plate after the shrub annihilated this country. I can’t really blame Obama for it. If McCain’t would have won the election, things would be 10 times worse by now.
“He stepped up to the plate after the shrub annihilated this country..”
Shrub is his whole problem.. He’s mimicking the guy.
Bush talked out his ass about the economy too. It contrasted so starkly with American’s own perceptions that they completely stopped listening to him and wrote him off as stupid.
Obama is running the same risk by doing the same thing..
How is championing healthcare reform remotely like the shrub? How is reversing the shrub’s attack on the ecosystem being like shrub?
I will admit he’s beholden to the same powers that controlled the shrub, the corporations and the military industrial complex. But at least he’s demonstrated he’s trying to do something. The shrub just let Cheney pull the strings.
While we can all agree that Obama is not doing exactly what we would do, and it disappoints us, he is not a shrub clone. Come on. There are not many like Bush- and be thankful for that. The notion that he is EXACTLY like Bush just shows a lack of analysis. First off, the fact he is bending to a failure of a minority in the GOP is one difference. It may piss us off, but it is not like Bush, who essentially told the dems to go fuck themselves. Cheney said it literally.
Truth is, don’t we want Obama to be MORE like Bush in his dealings with the GOP? Tell them where to go? Straight to Hell? Of course we want that, but we aren’t getting it. I want the arsonist of this Country to pay the price, but I probably won’t get that either.
I see several people here portending to be left-leaning, but expend most of their energy bashing the current Administration after 6 months. Is it really frustration, or some other ulterior motive?
I personally would love it if Obama would tell them where to stick it. I think they might drive him to it, anyway.
Clone or not, he’s doing the same thing Dubya did.. and to his detriment.
Talking up a non performing economy like it’s the clinton boom years just contrasts too much with the average joe’s daily experience.
It hurt Bush and it will hurt Obama.
Other clone moves, secrecy, FISA.. Bad policies he’s defended and even strengthened.
I see several people here portending to be left-leaning
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Like yourself?
A Dem kool-aid drinker charading as an “independent.”
Oh, another person from DemExcuseMakers dot com.
Don’t you get tired of rushing to make excuses, apologies and defenses for this Bush-accomplice millionaire war criminal?
Both look allot more like givvies to big bidness than genuine reform..
Case(s) in point - Carbon TAX is DOA. Cap & Trade is what he wants..
His health care plan sounds more altruistic, but may well turn out to be little more than the democrat version of Romney care.
Savior and War Criminal Obama is not “championing healthcare reform.” Don’t fall for that shit. This man doesn’t give a damn about health care reform. Nor is he “reversing the shrub’s attack on the environment.” Are you not aware that he is CONTINUING mountain top removal? And approved logging in Alaska? He’s approved off-shore oil drilling off both east and west coasts. That’s environmental to you? That’s just 3 examples.
It’s interesting how some people don’t pay as close attention when a so-called Dem is parked in the White House.
I want some of the crack that Nobama is smoking, he is getting real high if he thinks that the economy is better.
How juvenile.
Record bank profits is a pretty good indicator that the fire is out.
But… I never got a chance to toast my marshmallows….
I like Obama’s analogy of a house after the fire’s been put out. Bush and company torched the house.
Bush and company torched the house.
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And who served as their accomplices? The Bush-accomplice Dems. You left that part out. It’s best to be objective rather than D-brainwashed partisan.
How many times do you wish to repeat your bullshit on this board. See my response above. Dunderhead.
Also, don’t you get tired of deflecting criticism away from the Bush Crime Family where it belongs? I’ve already ravaged the dems over the past 5 years who have sided with Bush.
Or are you just another “I want my house rebuilt now!” spoiled-rotten Americans who was never taught patience by their parents?
Did this country recently invent the idea of shooting firefighters when they are putting out fires, or are we just copying somebody?
It’s a fair analogy. After the fire is out there is still a lot to do to make the house livable. It’s frustrating that so many people are so short sighted they can’t see the process or wait for it to take effect. Nobody thought the economy would be fixed in 6 months. What we are seeing is Republicans making political hay over this very serious issue that their party caused and that is hurting lots of good people. It’s shameful really. I hope they stay locked out of any high office for many generations. I want my grand kids to not even know what a Republican is.
“And that’s why the financial regulatory reform proposals that we put forward are so important,” Obama said.
WHAT ‘financial regulatory reform proposals”??? The ones written by Goldman Sachs revolving door appointees???
Fuck you, Obama, and the “put the fire out” lying horse you rode in on.
The fire has just begun to burn, and you could have reversed the Bush bailout mentality for the banksters, but no, you embraced it. They are STILL sitting on the exact same “toxic assets” we already PAID to get rid of. Just watch: Obama wil be back to say we need to bail them out. Again. and again, and again.
So, NOW IT IS YOUR fucking mess, Obama.
Here is the truth of what “fire” Obama has “put out” by forking over TRILLIONS to the BANKSTERS of Wall Street:
[Update: White House does not know how TARP funds were used
During Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a convoluted answer to a reporter who asked why the hundreds of billions in TARP funds have not been tracked.
“I think that Treasury Department puts out monthly reports on the lending activities from banks,” he began. “Again one of the suggestions was, in some ways being able to follow what might not be, according to us, followable. In other words you have the fungibility of money that is not put in a separate TARP lending account for the deposit and guarantee in Auburn, Alabama, for us to measure the increase in lending.
“The administration believes that that transparency is important but can be done better in measuring the increase in that lending. But it is going to be hard to follow, again, something as fungible as money moving from one bank to the other.”]
In other words, the IDIOT OBAMA doesn’t KNOW WHERE THE $700 BILLION WENT!!!! But, “don’t worry”, the “fire is out.”
By halloween, gas will be under 2$ a gallon, by thanksgiving, between $1 and $1.50, by christmas, under $1. You may be happy, but it signals the great storm to come….. By valentines day next year, massive shortages will occur, because with gas so cheap the oil companies are actually LOSING money selling you gas, so they have no reason to supply the stuff. The unemployment rate will spike violently as soon as the retailers realize that this christmas will be even more of a wash than last christmas, sometime around halloween is when they will figure it out and quietly start passing out the pink slips, the media will help them keep a lid on it. Then the price of gas will spike violently around st patricks day, but not because there is more consumption, oh no, it will be because HYPERINFLATION will strike with all its fury. So, what gas you can find will be considered a good price at $8 a gallon. Think it will be limited to the pump? Not at all! Around late january, sections of your supermarket will be bare, just one or two items not stocked at first, then the bare spots on the shelves will spread. Also, many more stores will close, that process is already well underway. expect some forced “bank holidays” shortly after new years, along with draconian restrictions on withdrawls. Prisons will begin shutting down(oops!! Too late, already happening!!), look for FAR less police presence and MUCH longer response times, if they even bother to show up. The wolves are coming little sheeple, have you any meat to pay the wolves? The coming winter will be the coldest winter in American history, even the American Continental Army’s stay in Valley Forge will look like a kids summer camp compared to any urban are of America come February.. Hope you are ready.
wow.. did your crystal ball tell you that? Cause there sure aren’t any pieces of evidence to support _anything_ you’re suggesting (about oil/gas prices, etc). Why is it that society is going to become The Road Warrior?