President Barack Obama has said it is the reckless and irresponsible speculation on the Wall Street that led to a recession and hammered Main Street across the United States.
"When I took office, we were in the midst of this historic financial crisis brought on by reckless and irresponsible speculation on Wall Street.
That in turn had led to a recession that hammered Main Street across America. And you saw lost jobs and lost homes and lost businesses, and downscaled dreams," Obama said in his remarks yesterday in Quincy, Illinois.
"The first thing we had to do then was mount an aggressive response to make sure that this terrible recession didn't turn into another Great Depression.
Let's face it, that required some tough steps to stabilise the financial sector. Some of those steps weren't popular," he said adding that he took these steps to get America back on its feet.
"It's time to rebuild our economy on a new foundation so that we've got real and sustained growth.
It's time to extend opportunity to every corner of Main Street, in every city and every town and every county in America, so that young people don't feel like they've got to move someplace else to make their way," Obama said.
It's time to create conditions so that Americans who work hard can gain ground again, and they don't have to take out a bunch of credit card debt.
They don't have to endanger their long-term financial future. And that's at the heart of all US efforts, said the US President.
Making a strong pitch for Wall Street reform, Obama said, "We need good old common-sense Wall Street reform. We need it today. We don't need it next year. We don't need to do another study and examine it. We need it now."
Obama said as the crisis went through, some people on Wall Street took unbelievable risks with other people's money.
"They made bets. They were making bets on what was going to happen in the housing market, and they would create these derivatives and all these instruments that nobody understood. But it was basically operating like a big casino," he said.
