TAKIN' IT TO THE STREET
"We do not have to choose between markets unfettered by even modest protections against crisis, and markets stymied by onerous rules that suppress enterprise and innovation. That's a false choice."
- U.S. President Barack Obama enters the Wall Street lions' den to take his case for tougher financial-sector regulation to some of its biggest opponents.
I WISH I'D SAID THAT
"If I had tried to regulate [derivatives] because the Republicans were in a majority in the Congress, they would have stopped it. But I should have been caught trying. That was a mistake I made."
- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton tells ABC News that he was wrong to believe derivatives markets didn't need tougher regulation when he was in office.
GREED IS GOOD ENTERTAINMENT
"Truthfully, with all that's going on with Goldman and all that, sometimes, you know, you think what you've seen on television [in the news]you've already seen in the movie."
- Actor Michael Douglas, who reprises his role as investment greedmeister Gordon Gekko in the upcoming Wall Street sequel, muses on how the Street's real-life intrigue rivals anything Oliver Stone can cook up.
BATTING FOR THE BANKS
"Canada will not go down the path of excessive, arbitrary or punitive regulation of the finance sector."
- Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty opposes the IMF-supported global bank tax.
THE BUCK STOPS WAAAY UP THERE
"Sometimes God, I'm afraid, is to blame."
- Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary points a finger at the main culprit in the shutdown of European flights due to the ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano - although he later also blamed governments and transport regulators for moving too slowly in assessing the risk.