New era of responsibility - Obama

Corpobligation: At a time when the world is experiencing financial turmoil largely as a result of a runaway market and failed risk management strategies, President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address strikes a chord when he calls for a "new era of responsibility."

• Does Obama's address signal a change in the United States government`s approach to regulation as a positive force for society?
• Will corporate voices be heard in Washington lobbies? Stay tuned... 
  

Full Text of the Address. Here are some quotes especially relevant to companies and citizens trying to determine corpobligations.

Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. [...]

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. [...]

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

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