Biden: ‘Save the markets from free marketeers’

Vice President Biden, echoing President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous admonition about saving capitalism from capitalists, urged world leaders on Saturday help “save the markets from free marketeers.”

Biden made the remarks while speaking Saturday at the Progressive Governance Conference in Vina del Mar, Chile.

The assembled leaders “have to, in a sense, save the markets from free marketeers right now,” Biden said in remarks released by the White House. “And the essence of that requires transparency and accountability.”

The remarks could be interpreted as an ideological shot-across-the-bow at conservatives, who often emphasize the primacy of market forces in an economy.

Biden spoke of building a “new foundation” for the economy based on pragmatic considerations.

“I think the answer lies less in ideological prescriptions than it does in practical applications of the circumstances we face,” Biden said.