Obama blasts Wall St again

QUINCY - President Barack Obama hailed an apparent US Senate breakthrough to regulate Wall St, saying Americans must never again allow the financial practices that triggered an economic meltdown nearly two years ago.

In a campaign-style speech yesterday, the President said he believed Congress could agree on a far-reaching regulatory bill. He said it must end taxpayer bailouts of failed banks, shine light on complex investments known as derivatives, grant greater protections to financial consumers and give stockholders more say in how Wall St firms are run.

He told about 2300 people in this Mississippi River town that he was pleased to learn that Senate Republicans apparently had agreed to let a financial regulatory bill reach the floor for debate. "The time for reform is now," he said.

Obama capped his two-day, three-state Midwestern tour with one of his most sustained criticisms of Wall St abuses. Some major firms, he said, had operated like casinos, setting up investment instruments in which they would win and some consumers would lose, no matter which way a commodity moved.

Some financial executives had acted as though they were playing with "Monopoly money", he said, and stockholders should have more say in what these executives were paid and how they ran their businesses.

Obama disputed claims that legislation before Congress would lead to further public bailouts of banks considered too big to fail. He said he wanted to make sure the taxpayer "is never again on the hook when a Wall St firm fails".

Obama this week was trying to explain how his administration's agenda over the past 15 months would benefit the middle class.

The president's Midwest tour comes as economic forecasts show some signs of progress: the nation added jobs at the fastest pace in three years last month, the manufacturing industry is growing at a steady pace and new claims for jobless benefits have declined.

But 15 million Americans remain out of work.

- AP