I honestly don’t know if he meant it in a statist way or a pro-labor way. I’d tend to assume the latter, but it could be the former.
I suspect it's the latter, too. With a dollop of consumerism thrown in for good measure. Remember, Obama has several times called for a "bottom-up" recovery. He believes this baloney.
It's true that consumers provide the money that supports a business, but if the entrepreneur doesn't carefully save a portion of his revenues [that is, he must refrain from current consumption,] labor don't get paid and consumers soon don't have a business to buy from.
John Stuart Mill, in the 19th century, wrote that buying goods does not buy labor, meaning that consumer spending does not support the economy. Only capitalists who consciously make the decision to save their proceeds and reinvest in the business can cause economic growth.
That's a concept Obama could never comprehend.