Instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide they wanna be an engineer
Part of what happened over the last 15, 20 years is that so much money was made in finance, that about 40% — I think — of our overall economic growth was in the financial sector. Well, now what we’re finding out is; a lot of that growth wasn’t real. It was paper money, paper profits on the books, but it could be easily wiped out. And what we need is a steady growth. We need young people, instead of [mumbles] a smart kid coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide they wanna be an engineer, they wanna be a scientist, they wanna be a doctor or a teacher. And if we’re rewarding those kinds of things that actually contribute to making things and making people’s lives better, that’s gonna put our economy on solid footing. We won’t have this kind of bubble and bust economy that we’ve gotten so caught up in for the last several years.
Barack Obama on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno of March 19 of this year. Click here to see the video, quote starts at around 3:53.
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