"We had to stabilize the financial system, which, given the role of the big banks in creating this mess, was a pretty tough pill to swallow. I knew it would be unpopular -- and rightly so. But I also knew that we had to do it because if they went down, your local banks would have gone down. And if the financial system went down, it would have taken the entire economy and millions more families and businesses with it. We would have looked -- we would have been looking at a second Great Depression. So in my first months in office, we also had to save two of the big three automakers from a liquidation bankruptcy, complete collapse. Some people weren't happy about that, either. I understand that. They felt like if you're in a business, you make a bad decision, you ought to reap the consequences, just like any business would. The problem was, if we let GM and Chrysler simply go under, hundreds of thousands of Americans would have been hurt, not just at those companies themselves, but at auto suppliers and other companies and dealers here in Michigan, up in -- here in Ohio, up in Michigan, all across this country."