Barack Obama Quotes

We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.

Trust and transparency, the great principles of the free market, are at stake here.

We need to encourage and reward those who play by the rules.

… clean up thoroughly unwholesome conditions in the field of investment. In this we have had assistance from many bankers and businessmen, most of whom recognize the past evils in the banking system, in the sale of securities, in the deliberate encouragement of stock gambling, in the sale of unsound mortgages and in many other ways in which the public lost billions of dollars. They saw that without changes in the policies and methods of investment there could be no recovery of public confidence in the security of savings.

We have to raise the bar on corporate governance. Shareholders want ethical behavior and honesty.

Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism …. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.

If the large banks can do this without breaking the rules, then the rules should be revamped.

I don’t think that Wall Street should write its own rules.

One thing I have always promised is to be open and transparent and to treat employees and partners with respect and integrity.

No one is above the game or the rules that govern it. Respect for the game and the people who participate in it will not be compromised.

To follow the example of other states would deprive Wisconsin of a large measure of its sovereign prerogative, and establish great corporations as independent powers within the state, a sort of imperia in imperiis (empire within an empire), baffling state order, state economy, state policy.

Fines have to be incentives to enforce the law. We cannot allow them to become just another cost of doing business

I do not dread these corporations as instruments of power to destroy this country, because there are a thousand agencies which can regulate, restrain and control them.

Corporate executives are not all that conservative….They are not interested in the social issues and the big boys and girls are not interested in fighting regulation because that’s what keeps the little boys and girls from becoming big boys and girls.

The importance of supervising the business of great railways and industrial combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of unlawful business methods are another necessary tax upon Government which did not exist half a century ago.

The Commission concludes that the banking supervisors failed to adequately and proactively identify and police the weaknesses of the banks and thrifts or their poor corporate governance and risk management, often maintaining satisfactory ratings on institutions until just before their collapse. This failure was caused by many factors, including beliefs that regulation was unduly burdensome, that financial institutions were capable of self-regulation, and that regulators should not interfere with activities reported as profitable.

You can't keep fraud out of the system. The key to good regulation is how quickly you catch it.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations.

… strong national regulation of interstate corporations

Let business oversee itself.

It's appropriate for people to pursue their profit motive in business. If you want to change that, you're going against human nature. But when it comes to setting the rules or creating the institutions, then you should have the general interest at heart.

Like the government, corporations must be bound with the chains of the Constitution, and especially of the Bill of Rights.

Technical problems can be remediated. A dishonest corporate culture is much harder to fix.

The regulators can’t do it. These institutions are just too large and complex.

The financial interests have captured the government institutions.