Obama Tells Wall Street to Listen Up

An optimistic yet stern President Obama gave the financial sector a warning Monday about learning from mistakes and preventing another economic collapse.

"Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall," said Mr. Obama to an audience of financial community members and government officials at Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City.

His remarks come on the one year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Outlining the economic crisis and the remediation that the previous administration made as well as policies that he has implemented, Mr. Obama spoke out to directly to financial sector members who he believes are "misreading" the road to recovery.

"Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them. They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation’s. So I want them to hear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses," he said.

President Obama expressed some optimism, though, citing that the need for government intervention in achieving financial stability is 'waning'; and that the US is 'beginning to return to normalcy'.

Mr. Obama said banks who have received taxpayer money have paid back $70 billion already and "in those cases where the government’s stake has been sold completely, taxpayers have actually earned a 17-percent return on their investment."

Despite this progress, the President stressed the importance of revamping the regulatory system that oversees the financial system. "The only way to avoid a crisis of this magnitude is to ensure that large firms can’t take risks that threaten our entire financial system," he noted, "and to make sure they have the resources to weather even the worst of economic storms.

Mr. Obama also took the opportunity to reiterate that he inherited the financial crisis from the previous administration and stress that his $800 billion economic recovery package is one of the reasons “that the storms of the past two years are beginning to break.”

Last night in an interview with CBS News 60 Minutes, President Obama addressed criticism that his policies nationalized parts of the banking industry. "... Time out a second," he told interviewer Steve Croft, "when I walked in-- the banking system, the financial system was under the verge of collapse. And what have I done. I've essentially taken the program that was voted on by the previous Congress, supported by the previous Republican president, and we've made it work. So, that didn't originate under my watch."

President Obama planned to lunch with former President Bill Clinton in New York following the addre