"This Is the Defining Challenge of Our Time"

"So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed. In fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to America’s market economy; across the developed world, inequality has increased. Some--some of you may have seen just last week, the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. How could it be, he wrote, that it’s not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?
"But this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people."

The Washington Post publishes a transcript of President Obama's speech on inequality.

Paul Krugman in The New York Times praises the speech.

And in the Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik writes that "Obama gave the most important speech of his presidency."