The Plum Line has some excerpts of the speech that President Obama will give at Cooper Union today. In it, President Obama will reaffirm his support for a "free market" but argue that a free market "was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it." In essense, he will argue for the reform capitalism primarily created by FDR:
As I said two years ago on this stage, I believe in the power of the free market. I believe in a strong financial sector that helps people to raise capital and get loans and invest their savings. But a free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. That is what happened too often in the years leading up to the crisis. Some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged, there is family looking to buy a house, pay for an education, open a business, or save for retirement. What happens here has real consequences across our country.
President Obama will argue that financial reform is in the interest of Wall Street as well as America:
A comprehensive plan to achieve these reforms has passed the House of Representatives. A Senate version is currently being debated, drawing on the ideas of Democrats and Republicans. Both bills represent significant improvement on the flawed rules we have in place today, despite the furious efforts of industry lobbyists to shape them to their special interests. I am sure that many of those lobbyists work for some of you. But I am here today because I want to urge you to join us, instead of fighting us in this effort. I am here because I believe that these reforms are, in the end, not only in the best interest of our country, but in the best interest of our financial sector. And I am here to explain what reform will look like, and why it matters.
The Plum Line
In fact, however, the long term interest of Wall Street is not necessarily the short term interest of individuals that underlies the "free markert." Those contradictions, however, will be ignored in the rhetoric, and I expect Big Finance to continue to battle the reforms.