Barack Obama Quotes

This country is very good at creating wealth, but not very good at distributing it.

Today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth—significantly more than the bottom 90 percent who control just 26.9 percent.

The economy will bump along, with most of us struggling to make ends meet, while the same people who nearly wrecked the economy altogether will be making more money than they can count.

Since 2009, 95 percent of all gains in the economy went to the top 1 percent. That didn’t leave very much for the rest of us.

It is the unvarying law that the wealth of the community will be in the hands of the few ...

There’s just too much money in the hands of too few.

The United States economy is like a poker game where the chips have become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and where the other fellows can stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit runs out the game will stop.

If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed; extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare.

This is the national equivalent of having no savings, your credit card maxed out, you didn't renew your insurance, and now your house has burned down. The only way we can start to solve this is rolling back the tax cuts for the rich, which would save about $70 billion.

What's dangerous is the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals.

Concentrating wealth in the hands of the few and deregulating financial institutions and practices lead to speculative bubbles that eventually burst - and that brings the whole country down.

The combined Gross Domestic Product of forty-eight countries is less than the wealth of the three richest people in the world. Fifteen billionaires have assets greater than the total national income of Africa, south of the Sahara. Thirty-two people own more than the annual income of everyone who lives in South Asia.

Never forget that there are rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries.

No one should have more than five times the wealth of the poorest person.

When wealth is centralized, the people are dispersed. When wealth is distributed, the people are united.

In a morally adjusted economy ... the rich should not get richer if the poor get poorer.

Unequal wealth distribution is a risk factor for inequality that must be attacked by policies.

Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty.

The distribution of wealth is just as important as its creation.

The real problems of our economy began when the very smart people of our society went to Wall Street.

From time to time, capitalism has a tendency to implode.

Capitalism and democracy are intertwined into our way of life so intricately that serious problems with the economy (again, particularly as they affect the typical family) represent a threat to almost everything we believe in.

I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool's paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

The greatest issue before the people—the question of special privilege and unequal distribution of wealth.