in their own words
 |
|
|
|
 Outlawing Bubbles - White House Press Briefing by Robert Gibbs 3/12/09 — Thursday, March 12, 2009 — Q Yes, Robert, can I come back to what you said about bubbles? And actually, sort of the way the President phrases it in the excerpts that you've given us. MR. GIBBS: He's far more eloquent than I am, so if you're -- Q He phrased it rather interestingly, saying, "We cannot go back to endless cycles of bubble and bust." Does he think the business cycle can be repealed? I mean, I just -- you know, bubbles are one thing, but -- MR. GIBBS: Well, read me the phrase again. Q "We cannot go back to endless cycles of bubbles and bust." Surely there are going to be ups and downs in an economy. MR. GIBBS: Well, right. But again, there -- certainly there are ups and downs. There are ups and down in lots of facets of life. But are those ups and downs controlled by a sustained economic idea that creates jobs of the future, invests in the education in order to produce people to do those jobs of the future, take into account some fiscal restraint and fiscal responsible to ensure that government lending isn't crowding out private investment? But the President will I think take on quite clearly that if -- you know, if -- he does not believe the theory of economic growth through an overheated housing market makes a whole lot of sense. I would posit to you that I've gotten God knows how many questions from up here about the danger of toxic assets that were leveraged by factors of 30 and 40 to 1, surrounding many of the mortgages that -- or some of the mortgages that were contained in an overheated and over-speculated housing market. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Or whether we've seen through any number of statistics -- the President doesn't believe that economic growth is having six credit cards maxed out at $25,000 to $50,000; that that may produce in economic statistics great increases in retail sales or consumer spending, but I don't think any of us here would argue that that is a case for long-term sustained economic growth. I don't think the President is -- I'm not even sure where one would go to repeal the business cycle. Q It's not like they're going to outlaw irrational exuberance or investors making -- MR. GIBBS: No, I don't think it outlaws -- I mean, I don't think we're going to outlaw irrational exuberance. I do believe, though, the President believes that we must make tough choices now in order to put ourselves on a path that presents for the American people the opportunity to grow their economy not on something that will bust in three years, you know; not on something that will see stock prices go through the roof only to have stock prices collapse through the floor in a matter of months. I mean, you know, let's -- the high point of the market recently was October of 2007, right -- 14,000 and some change. Exactly two months before, economists now believe what I think in the end might well be one of the biggest and deepest recessions in our country's history started. I think there's an -- I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure it all didn't go to pot in that November. Economy | President Obama | Press Briefing | Robert Gibbs | Wall Street | White House Press Corps Labels: Economy, President Obama, Press Briefing, Robert Gibbs, Wall Street, White House Press Corps
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 9:45 PM
|
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
< whpc home