U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday defended the actions his administration has taken to fight the global financial crisis, saying it takes time for the credit system to unfreeze.
"It's going to take a while for the credit system to thaw," Bush said in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C.
In order to calm the nation's volatile financial markets, Bush said the massive infusions of government cash into the credit system are "big enough and bold enough to work."
"The American people can be confident that they will," he said.
Defending the government's extraordinary series of interventions in the financial crisis, Bush called them measures of "last resort" that will ultimately work to restore stability to the economy.
"I would oppose such measures under ordinary circumstances," Bush said. "But these are not ordinary circumstances."
He said the government's moves were aimed at preventing the problems from getting worse, not as an immediate salve to the battered economy.
"Had the government not acted, the hole in our financial system would have grown larger," he said. "We would have been forced to respond with even more drastic and costly measures later on."
The president and his top economic aides have repeatedly asked Americans to be patient and give the government's rescue efforts time to work.
Bush on Tuesday announced new measures to implement an action plan agreed by the Group of Seven major industrialized countries to strengthen the banking industry.
The government will use a portion of the 700-billion-U.S.-dollar financial rescue package to inject capital into banks by directly purchasing equity shares.
He said the government will initially buy stocks in nine major U.S. banks under its 250-billion-dollar purchase plan.
"This new capital will help struggling banks fill the hole created by losses during the financial crisis, so they can resume lending and help spur job creation and economic growth," Bush said.
Source: Xinhua
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