I understand how important the automakers are to America. And I understand a bankruptcy; a failure in that industry wouldn't be a good thing. It's something we should avoid.

I've always said, 'I don't want to be irrelevant.'

An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention.

Anticompetitive practices hurt Chinese private firms nearly as much as foreign ones.

The U.S. didn't save enough; we borrowed a lot. There were structural imbalances in Asia with exporters, with oil exporters for a whole variety of things.

I have great, great confidence in our capital markets and in our financial institutions. Our financial institutions, banks and investment banks, are strong. Our capital markets are resilient. They're efficient. They're flexible.

Well, as you know, we're working through a difficult period in our financial markets right now, as we work off some of the past excesses. But the American people can remain confident in the soundness and the resilience of our financial system.