Barack Obama Quotes

We have been dealt a very weak hand by the financial market meltdown, bailouts, and recession. We can't act like it's a strong one.

The 2008 economic crisis and Great Recession forced widespread restructuring throughout the U.S. economy - not unlike a company gritting its teeth through a lifesaving bankruptcy.

… a depression is for capitalism like a good, cold douche.

During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator.

The simple fact of the matter is, as I know everyone in this room knows, that the recession that this country faced when this President took office was the worst since the Great Depression.

A recession is when a neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

This economy is on life support.

Our problem is not adopting reforms, which we will do without question. It is not reaching an objective, which we will meet. But it is finding an end to the recession.

You know, my Grandpop Finnegan used to have an expression: he used to say, 'Joey, the guy in Olyphant's out of work, it's an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law's out of work, it's a recession. When you're out of work, it's a depression.'

The 24% unemployment reached at the depths of the Great Depression was no picnic.

There are different flavors of recession. You can get into some pretty dark scenarios pretty quickly.

How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?

Obama's economic policies obviously have not worked, and have left the American market place with enormous uncertainty and anxiety.

I don't think it's the end of the world even if we have a recession. We'll pull back out of it again. No big deal.

A government decision that slashes spending at the wrong time and sends a weak economy into a tailspin can be just as undisciplined as one that unleashes a wasteful spending spree in an overheated environment.

We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton's, or Abraham Lincoln's?

We got into a recession because the global economy went into the recession and we're a big exporting nation.

The entire economy, of course, is locked in a down cycle right now. Last time we weathered this was during another Bush presidency in '90. We were locked in it for a year and a half and everyone came out of it.

It's Obama's bad luck that he got elected just as the mayhem of the foreclosures, the banking collapse, and the General Motors disaster was accelerating the surge in unemployment to warp speed.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

It's a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment and of low growth.

I take office during the most difficult moment in the country's recent history. The country can be saved - it's up to us. I think it is obvious for those who support this government to undertake the commitment and ensure that our country's euro membership is not endangered.

Financial crises are an unfortunate but necessary consequence of modern capitalism.

The experience of the '90s, whether it's the '94 peso crisis or the '97 crisis in Asia, the '98 crisis, even the 2001 crisis, is that we recovered pretty readily. There wasn't great consequence.

We don't sit down and go, 'People are uneasy about the economy. Let's write about that.'