American President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned the Wall Street against their reckless spending and asked them to act responsibly and be accountable.
"Bankers and executives on Wall Street need to realise that enriching themselves on the taxpayer's dime is inexcusable, that the days of outsize rewards and reckless speculation that puts us all at risk have to be over," Obama said in his opening statement at his second live prime time press conference from White House.
At the same time, Obama said: "The rest of us can't afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit. That drive is what has always fueled our prosperity, and it is what will ultimately get these banks lending and our economy moving once more."
Referring to the issue of AIG bonuses, which has outraged the entire country, Obama said, "I'm as angry as anybody about those bonuses that went to some of the very same individuals who brought our financial system to its knees, partly because it's yet another symptom of the culture that led us to this point."
The US President said: "Moving forward, anybody -- any bank, for example, that is receiving capital from the taxpayers is going to have some very strict conditions in terms of how it pays out its executives, how it pays out dividend, how it's reporting its lending practices."
So his administration wants to make sure that there's some stiff conditions in place, he said.
Obama assured the countrymen that the US would recover from this recession.
"But it will take time; it will take patience; and it will take an understanding that when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interest to the wider set of obligations we have towards each other, that's when we succeed. That's when we prosper. And that's what is needed right now," he said.
