have seen a more direct correlation nationally between economic growth and hiring. we don't seem to have that correlation today. what has changed? do you think we could be doing more to address that issue? >> well, i talked about this a bit in my testimony. in fact, the -- pace of improvement in the labor market from last summer through march or -- march, was actually surprisingly strong given the relatively tepid rated of growth in overall economic activity. and it was a puzzle we were trying to understand. i gave a speech about this in march. and -- one hypothesis is that there was a -- burst of extra hiring that reflected the reversal of what might have been excessive layoffs during the recession periods. firms felt -- actually laid off too many workers. >> catch-up. >> catching up to that. implication -- if that is true which we do not know for sure

because there are a lot of other things going on if that is true, then -- implication is that if growth stays going forward, if growth stays near potential rate of growth, say, 2.5%, that the improvement in the unemployment rate going forward might be quite limited. so that's -- again, as i said, a question we really have to think about. >> thank you. >> thank you, thank you, mr. chairman for being here. my experience in business and politics tells me that most of the time when we are trying to solve problems we are actually treating symptoms and i'm worried about that with our political policies as well as monetary policies. it is pretty clear our current tax rates didn't cause the deep recession. you know they were implemented during a down turn in the early '90s.

we had six years of growth. the problem came from a loose credit policies that resulted in subprime mortgages and toxic securities. and we have not really addressed that except it appears we overaddressed it from talking to a lot of businesses, homebuilders, realtors. that -- we have constricted credit to such a degree that local banks that don't have the flexibility to deal with local economies because the federal government and various agencies are telling them what has to be in their portfolio. i feel like maybe the solutions is much simpler. maybe not simple but in effect we are not addressing that problem that would allow the flexibility. you know we can't deal with overbuilding of houses that will take years to do that. but i don't think that we addressed the true cause or at least a big part of the cause. instead we have -- tried unprecedented bank bailouts, unprecedented government spending and unprecedented

federal -- monetary acty advicem and it is not working. i'm concerned about that. the thing i'm really concerned about now is over -- since 2008, the national debt had a has increased 50% the interest paid on that debt increased about 2%. and -- i think some of the things you are doing and federal reserve is giving us a false sense of security, last year i think you bought over 75% of the debt that we created which masks the real problem and i think -- probably gives us a debt interest rate that's much lower than it would be. and part of my concern now is that -- as my colleague just said on one side, you appear by these huge derivative markets and other things going on to have to keep our interest rates low. and -- on the other side if you don't keep -- treasury yields low, banks are going to park the free money we are giving them in

treasuries, it seems you are caught in a catch-22 now where you have to work both sides of this to keep interest rates abnormally low and you have to continue to buy treasuries or we will be paying so much on our national debt that the fiscal problems we are looking at will complicate overnight. so -- we are on one side doing things that don't appear to address the true root causes of our problem. we seem to now be in a quagmire that we can't get out of. now -- i'm sure you have a totally different take on that. i think you would have to agree that the -- activism has been unprecedented and reason to -- to at least cause some concern. >> it has been a whole range of approaches and responses to this crisis which was a terrible crisis. required a strong response.

i guess i comment on your point about interest rates and the federal debt. the reason we keep interest rates low is not to accommodate congressional fiscal policy. reason we keep interest rates low is we think it will help the economy recover faster and keep inflation near our 2% target. those are objectives. >> see the rest of this hearing at c-span.org. live to a defensive department briefing with martin dempsey. just getting under way. >> most of you know last night i returned from my first lengthy trip to southeast asia. a least i think it was last night. as you know, those of you that live in that part of the world, you know what a challenge it is to transit back and forth. we did have a great series of visits in particular with counterparts of singapore, philippines and thailand. i also participated in the shangri-la dialogue where i met with defense.

i was there with respect panetta and the commander of our u.s. pacific command, admiral locklear. speeches and discussions we laid out the context and rationale for what we have been describing as a rebalanced region, a region that's of strategic consequence to the entire world. economic, demographic and military trends mean prosperity and security will increasingly depend on how that expansive region evolves. i want to note the rebalance obviously involves much more than just military matters. but that happens to be my own particular area of expertise so that's what i will talk about. it involves more than just bringing additional hardware to the area. we will do some of that, of course. repositioning our forces is not the essence of our rebalancing. rather it is what i think of as three mores. more attention, more engagement, and more quality.

more attention means a greater investment of our intellectual capital. for more than a decade, our military has been focused on war. we are still fighting a war, of course. between want allow ourselves to be distracted from that effort. we are giving more of our attention to the asia pacific. second, more engagement is made possible by our forces in the region being more available. engagement is how we build trust and how we prevent misperceptions that can lead to conflict. so we will strengthen our tradition relationships and develop new partnerships by expanding both the scope and scale of our interactions throughout the region. for example, with multilateral exercises, rotational deployment, continued personnel exchanges and dialogue with our counterparts. third, more quality is an evolution in our priorities. what we decide to bring to the region matters as much, perhaps more, than how much we bring. this means that as the rerebalance evolves we will make

our fifth generation aircraft and the very best of our missile defense technology as we work with our partners. even more important than hardware, though, we will bring to bear our human capitalism as i mentioned. in my discussions over the last week, i have had nothing but positive feedback on this approach. the leaders i spoke with welcome our commitment to the region and look forward to working together toward a more security and prosz perfectous future. i share their optimism and see far more opportunity than liability. i look forward to your questions. start there. >> i want to know -- you have a meeting in philippines. did you mention about anything like the dispute issues in south china sea? and meet president obama tomorrow. what are you going to discuss about it? is there any information you can

offer us? >> we actually had a more expansive conversation than just the south china sea. again, it was about first and foremost about the meaning of our rebalancing to the pacific which, by the way, the -- your president or president, i should say, my counterparts in the philippines, welcome and so we discussed that. of course, the south china sea came up. and -- you know, we discussed the fact that it is in our interest to maintain -- we ensure freedom of navigation and maritime security, and that we did not become involved in territorial disputes but certainly called on all claimants to resolve these issues through existing -- without company sxergs that was an important point. >> the >> do you have any update today on the event in logar province

in which president karzai said 18 civilians were killed yesterday? and al qaeda in that region a year after bin laden's death and proposed al qaeda suffered a number of setbacks lately, what's your assessment of the remaining strength of al qaeda not only inside pakistan but also inside of afghanistan? >> the incident is under investigation. we game alert to it about 48 hours ago. about 48 hours ago. pursuant to a conflict and a troops in contact call. there were some buildings in a particular village that were struck with aerial delivered fires. and at the time, there were two civilians that came forward declaring they had been wounded in the action. we did a sweep of the area and did not at that time find any other civilian casualties in the rubble. subsequent to that, a particular

leader of the province came forward, and did say that in further searching of the rubble then found civilian casualties. we don't know at this point the scope and scale of it. and as you know, we do our very best to avoid civilian casualties. this investigation will try to determine if will were civilian casual zpees then we will take the appropriate actions. >> you asked me about al qaeda. you know, al qaeda, what he call al qaeda senior leadership, has been significantly affected, mostly those who, you know, ten years ago we began tracking are no longer part of al qaeda and no longer part of any organization. and to that extent we have been very successful. there have been others that have taken their place. al qaeda remains a factor both inside of the federally administered tribal area in

pakistan. to a much lesser extent inside afghanistan and all i can tell you is that we remain at war with al qaeda and we will confront them wherever we find them. >> my name is nadia, washington correspondent important taiwan. we know about in asia there's no security -- from this dialogue and your trip to asia, do you find that a security -- it is forming within the asian country with the u.s.? and the second question that we know the u.s. is looking for another -- another harborer in a country to coop. so -- you know, cooperation in the future. do you find there this trip other potential country be able to facilitate? >> to your point about a regional -- organization or

mechanism, during the shangri-la dialogue and bilaterals we conducted both on marches of shangri-la and travels we are encouraging them to make a more active role to be a unified voice for security issues in that region. we do support that. there are -- they haven't actually taken a decision as a group to do that, to be more vocal. but as you probably know they are working on a code of conduct for mayor time issues in the south china sea. we think it would be a very positive thing if they could do that. as far as ports for port calls, yeah, we have found that most of our mayor time paritime partner region are interested in having a dialogue about rotational presence, port calls and things. because i think there is a genuine -- we certainly believe that we are a -- that our presence in the region is a presence for stability and i

think we found most of our partners do as well. >> earlier today secretary panetta compared the relationship with tipped yeah relationship with pakistan. they had years of fighting and wars. can you sort of give us an idea of where you see the relationship with pakistan right now? and then the death of al libi this week, how does that impact -- does that further strain the relationship with u.s. and pakistan they are continuing to strike in fatah? >> well, as you know, i have been working the -- u.s./pakistani relationships in earnest since about wife. so i'm seven years deep in it and i -- i would venture to say that -- that i'm -- it is always surprising to me. i mean, you know, we do some things very well. we have some interests on which we cooperate almost without question and then there are other issues we just have not

been able to find common ground. the presence of afghan/taliban in the fatah is one of those areas. it is our view that those haqqani network is as big a threat to pakistan as it is to afghanistan and to us but we haven't been able to find common ground on that point. that's been very frustrating. as far as the death of abu, it is a -- it was -- that's a significant loss for al qaeda because he had, first of all had longstanding credibility and he had operational skills that are tough to grow overnight. and so dash that will be something that affects back to -- bob's question that affects the al qaeda network. globally. not just in south asia. as far as -- has that strained our relationship with pakistan,

there are friction points in our relationship of pakistan and those activities are one of those friction points. but we continue to work on any number of things, whether it is safe haven or -- or activities in the fatah. we just have to keep at it. pakistan is an important partner. but there are some things that we just have to keep after. >> hi there. there are worries that when the u.s. helped countries like philippines to build up their capacity p. they become boulder and prone to more provocations in their handling of the disputes such as in south china sea. secretary panetta was asked about this question in the shangri-la dialogue. during your meetings with filipino officials, have you

conveyed -- have you discussed with them such worries or have you encouraged them to be more restrained in their future behaviors? >> well, when we -- when we entered to agreements with partners to build capacity, the -- there is always a strategy behind it. and, you know, there are plenty of things that all nations in the region should be interested in. and the -- pacific in particular. certainly maritime security, maritime domain awareness, and counter piracy, counter-transnational organized crime, those are issues that should -- i think are of common issues to everyone. when we build capacity for that, there doesn't seem to be any concerns. the philippines, as you know in particular, has been inward focused on its internal terrorism and insurgent issues for some time. for decades really. so have a very limited capability to project power or

to influence activities around it. we think that they need some of that. particularly in maritime security. so i think -- you know, i think that's the conversation -- i can assure you that's the conversation we have with all of our partners. as we enter into agreements on how to build their capacity. >> sort of fall on that, what are the stories in the fail peens was about your advice it to a discussion about the combined joint special operations, task force there. this building is highly the work of that and others for the hostage rescue, central africa, against the lra. can you speak broadly about that, having small footprint emissions fit into your new strategy, and looking ahead, do you see places on the -- in the world you want to sit other task force zblst yeah. let me speak about the joint task force. that's the one you are talking about. and that was a great visit because, you know, it is a very

small -- roughly 400 or so, it is a joint team. you know, servicemen and women from every service, active guard and reserve. built awn round a core of u.s. special operating forces who have been over time building the capability of the philippine armed forces to counter. enormously successful. what i -- what i took away even more impressively was there -- they are not only assisting our philippine counterparts in how to conduct network offensive kinetic operations, if you will, counterinsurgency, but also civil military operations. so they are out there -- through the -- philippine -- counterparts in philippines building schools and helping with small local economic projects, and what's beginning to happen is that as you would

expect over time, is that the people are beginning to -- that the -- philippine military is beginning to rise in people who heretofore wouldn't allow them near their neighborhoods. one example that's actually quite remarkable. two operating special forces in that jtf killed in 2010 by an ied on the way to a school project. the people of the -- of the village have now petitioned the government of the pihilippines o allow them to name that school after those two soldiers. you can't buy that gmwioodwill. you have to earn it. through partners, committed over time certainly are the mark of what will make our strategy work, and to your point about are there other places, i'm sure there are. that's why we're traveling around to try to gauge the

interests in partners to having us do those kind of missions. >> as you know, syria has been the most pressing issue in the region. a few quick questions. >> i'll give one. >> okay. >> first do you believe -- >> not first. one question. count. what's your question. >> do you think the government pressure has failed in stopping the syrian regime from killing its own people, and -- >> ah. and, a conjunction. let me answer the question. i think that certainly it's -- it is moving at a pace that is, that is slower than anyone would want. i mean, the continued massacres are just deplorable. the pressures that are being brought to bear are simply not

having the affect i think that we intend, but i'm not prepared to advocate that we abandon that track at this point. yes, sir? >> follow-up on bob's important question, you referred to kinetic activities in the fatah, to the u.s. being at war in the fatah. is it time for the u.s. to acknowledge that it is at war in pakistan, and what should the message be to the pakistani's, this takeaway from the secretary's embrace and desire deep in indian-u.s. relations? >> let me knit two things together here. one is the question earlier about al qaeda. we are at war with al qaeda and as i said we will pursue them wherever we find them, because they are a network a global network which has the intent of threatening our homeland. so we are at war with al qaeda, and al qaeda's in the fatah. but let me knit that together with something else, which is

the relationship we have with pakistan. pakistan with us is at war in the fatah with other groups. i mean, make no mistake about it, although we are extraordinarily dissatisfied with the effect that pakistan has had on the haqqanis, we are also mindful that they are conducting military operations at great loss, by the way, elsewhere in north waziristan and up in moman province, agency. so pakistan is at war in the fatah, and with us in some case, not with any u.s. military personnel. with us in the sense that they are trying to diminish the effect of those insurgencies on that side of the border. on your question about india, we have for some time said that we aspire to a closer relationship and greater engagement with india.

i mean, they are currently the second and soon -- depending who you believe, soon to be the largest country in the world. that sit at an enormously important geostrategic location on the sea line from the mideast into the pacific, and they're the world's largest democracy. so, sure. we have for as long as i can remember been seeking greater engagement with them. let me go over to this side and i'll come right back to you. i want to get -- you already had one. right? okay. then you can have one. >> hi. of the world journal. thank you. when you discuss the aid to the region and what are their concerns and what do you expect them to do with u.s. -- >> i missed the first part? >> the region. the countries in the region. what are their concerns? >> well, the countries that i visit -- i haven't visited all of them.

the country i visited they had two questions. one question is, are you trying to come back here to establish bases, and, you know, a permanent presence? and the second one is, are you coming back here with the intent of containing china? so to the first of those two questions, i don't carry around a backpack with american flags and run around the world planting them. in fact, quite to the contrary. what we want to do is, consistent with our new strategy, we want to be out there partnered with nations and having the presence that would allow us to build up common capabilities for common interests in the region. because we think that will be stabilizing. we think, in fact, the opposite. our absence will be the destabilizing unit. to china, i assured anyone that dhoez ask the question, our strategy and rebalancing to the

pacific is not intended to contain china. it is -- it seems to me to be somewhat evident that the strategic challenges of the future, whether those are economic challenges, whether they're demographic challenges, whether they're military challenges, are migrating to the pacific. you know? just by virtue of the size, the scope, the scale of populations and economies, that is the region in the world where we all ought to be engaged, and we all ought to be engaged with the intent of avoiding confrontation and the way you avoid confrontation is by being transparent and in my view present so you don't create miscalculation. and that's the message that we carried into the pacific. yes? >> a couple pakistan issues. the u.s. is losing patience with pakistan's inability to blunt cross-border encounters. what's the implication of that remark in terms of loss of patience? direct u.s. over the border operations or what?

>> well, i think next time you have a chance to ask secretary panetta, you ought to the ask him that question. i won't speak for him. but let me say this about why it seems more important now than maybe it was a year ago. remember now, we're at a point where we've got capability beginning to come online with our afghan security forces. we've also, us a know, last year we focused on the southern part of afghanistan. rc south and southwest. this year we're focused on rc east. because rc east, we've always known, will be the hardest transition. that's where haqqani is, in rc east. so the urgency i suppose is increasing for two reasons. one is, we've got to get rc east and the haqqani influence reduced in order to meet our timelines for the transition that we're moving towards, and at the end of '14. that's number one. number two, haqqanis become more active. the haqqani network is directly

attributed to the attack last month in kabul,k haqqani is with the base on salerno. they are rising in importance in our view and that's i think the best way to think about why is this becoming more prominent now. now -- let me go -- right here. >> would you believe what would be a good first step china could take to improve transparency? >> well, i think that -- i don't want to make it sound like there's not already some steps being taken. you know, our engagement is moving along. we would like to see it move a little faster, but the mill to mill especially service to service is actually moving along quite well. you know, transparency one of those words that's potentially in the eye of the beholder. we would like to have ongoing conversations with them about,

are we balances, and about their growth, their growth of military capability. but i think being there will be the condition under which those conversations have meaning, and so so, i don't want to suggest we don't have -- we do have a relationship with china and certainly aspire to increasing that relationship over time. >> part two of joe's question. >> you guys -- you're tag teaming? >> give us some idea of how big a military operation would be required to stop the killing of civilians in syria? >> i can't do that. i can't do that, because i'd really have to be -- you know, the military typically takes e the -- the information presented and an outcome. i have to know what the outcome is. you tell me the outcome i can bimd awe plan to achieve that outcome. certain outcomes you might expect. go back historically.