U.S. Recession Is a Thing Of The Past, Says Obama

"There's no country that wouldn't gladly trade places with us in terms of our strategic position.

"And part of that is also because we continue to have a culture of innovation and dynamism that Silicon Valley represents better than anyplace else on Earth," Obama said.

"In fact, the contraction was actually larger by some measures than the Great Depression. In part because of the incredible resilience of the American people, but in part because we actually put some smart policies in place, the record over the last five years is some pretty remarkable progress," he said.

"There's almost no economic measure by which we are not better off today than we were when I came into office -- that 52 straight months of job growth; 10 million jobs created; this past year, the biggest drop in unemployment in 30 years," he argued.

"Unemployment now is lower than it was before Lehman's.

“We've seen the deficit cut by more than half. Millions of people have health care that didn't have it before and health care inflation is the lowest that it's been in 50 years," Obama said.

"The stock market, obviously, has more than recovered and that's important for Wall Street but, more importantly, it's important for Main Street," he added.

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