Obama: Situation on Wall Street a ‘major threat’

Klaus Marre reports from the Hill that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on Monday said the turmoil in the financial markets is “a major threat to our economy” and a crisis unparalleled since the Great Depression.
The Illinois senator stated that the latest news from Wall Street, where, according to the Associated Press, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy while Bank of America Corp. is buying Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., is “very serious and troubling.”

Obama blamed the Bush administration and its policies for the crisis.

“The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store,” he said. “Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

Obama noted that he had “consistently called for modernizing the rules of the road to suit a 21st century market – rules that would protect American investors and consumers.”

Read full article from the Hill.