Obama sees lesser role for Wall Street

WASHINGTON — Wall Street is not going to play as dominant a role in the economy as regulations reduce “some of the massive leveraging and the massive risk-taking that had become so common,” President Barack Obama says.

The changes could mean other adjustments as well, Obama said in this week’s New York Times Magazine.

“That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy. I actually think that’s healthy. We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.”

The administration is trying to restore regulations on the financial sector to avoid some of the risk-taking that helped cause the current economic problems. “Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy, just as it was in the ’70s and the ’80s,” he said. “It just won’t be half of our economy.”