McCain Campaign Press Release - "In Case You Missed It": John McCain on the Financial Markets

"This is a result of excess and greed and corruption. And that's exactly what is plaguing Americans today. And we got to fix it and we've got to update our regulatory system." -- John McCain

John McCain On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" (9/16/08):

John McCain: "I was talking about the fundamentals of America, which is the workers, their productivity, their innovation, their incredible performance for many, many years. And what I was saying is and it's clear if you look at my remarks and that is that Wall Street has betrayed us. They've broken the social contract between capitalism and the average citizen and the worker. And workers are paying a very heavy price while a lot of them are not only emerging unscathed but some of them are left with packages of a hundred million dollars or so. This is a result of excess and greed and corruption. And that's exactly what is plaguing Americans today. And we got to fix it and we've got to update our regulatory system. We have to have a 9/11 commission to find out what went wrong and to fix what's going to happen in the future so this never ever happens again. And as president, I guarantee you, it will never happen again."

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"The first thing you do is you address this issue of the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies. It was designed for the 1930s. Now we have an instantaneous financial system that's global in nature and it's not compartmentalized. Look at the Stock Exchange today as to what it was even 20 or 30 years ago. So you've got to fix that and also, very frankly, people were asleep at the switch. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And then, of course, we have to make sure that everyone's deposit in a bank, that they know it's insured by the FDIC and that they're not in danger of losing that deposit. We've got a confidence crisis here as well as a financial crisis. And finally, again, we've got to make sure that people like Fannie and Freddie, organizations such as Fannie and Freddie, never have the influence again that they had in Washington. You saw it, Joe. The old boy network -- Republicans, Democrats, they had influence with everybody. S o therefore, we didn't act to have the sufficient oversight while these organizations grew and grew and became the corrupt institutions that they are today."

Watch John McCain On MSNBC's "Morning Joe"

John McCain On CNN's "American Morning" (9/16/08):

John McCain: "I said two years ago that the Fannie and Freddie thing was a very serious problem and that we had to work on it. And I have always opposed the greed of Wall Street and I know how we can fix this. We have to assure every American that their deposit in a bank is safe. We have to have a 9/11 commission. And we have to fix this alphabet soup of regulatory agencies that's left over from the 1930s. We can come back from this. It's a very tough crisis, and we're the victim of the violation of the social contract between capitalism and the American citizen."

Watch John McCain On CNN's "American Morning"