“When families have less to spend, that means businesses have fewer customers, and households rack up greater mortgage and credit card debt; meanwhile, concentrated wealth at the top is less likely to result in the kind of broadly based consumer spending that drives our economy, and together with lax regulation, may contribute to risky speculative bubbles.”

—  Barack Obama

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)
Context: So let me repeat: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim that I’m making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility. For one thing, these trends are bad for our economy. One study finds that growth is more fragile and recessions are more frequent in countries with greater inequality. And that makes sense. When families have less to spend, that means businesses have fewer customers, and households rack up greater mortgage and credit card debt; meanwhile, concentrated wealth at the top is less likely to result in the kind of broadly based consumer spending that drives our economy, and together with lax regulation, may contribute to risky speculative bubbles.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When families have less to spend, that means businesses have fewer customers, and households rack up greater mortgage a…" by Barack Obama?
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama 1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961

Related quotes

Robert B. Reich photo
Mary Ruwart photo

“When tariffs are eliminated, consumers pay less for foreign goods. They therefore have more money to spend on other things. Their spending creates more new jobs than those that are lost.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 183

Elizabeth Warren photo

“The American people deserve a Congress that worries less about helping big banks, and more about helping regular people who have been cheated on mortgages, on credit cards, on student loans and on credit reports.”

Elizabeth Warren (1949) 28th United States Senator from Massachusetts

As quoted in "Sen. Elizabeth Warren slams Republicans: Worry less about helping big banks" by Eric W. Dolan, in Raw Story (12 March 2013) https://www.rawstory.com/2013/03/sen-elizabeth-warren-slams-republicans-worry-less-about-helping-big-banks/
2013

Marriner Stoddard Eccles photo
David Graeber photo

“Consumer debt is the lifeblood of our economy. All modern nation states are built on deficit spending. Debt has come to be the central issue of international politics. But nobody seems to know exactly what it is, or how to think about it.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter One, "On The Experience of Moral Confusion", p. 4

Nouriel Roubini photo
Mark Skousen photo
James K. Galbraith photo
Bob McDonnell photo

“We are broke, have an unconscionable amount in credit card debt already, and this Inaugural is killing us!”

Bob McDonnell (1954) American attorney and politician

Maureen McDonnell, quoted on Daily News, "Former Virgina Gov. Bob McDonnell and wife indicted on corruption charges" http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/va-gov-bob-mcdonnell-wife-indicted-corruption-article-1.1586861, January 21, 2014.

Related topics