>> let's get started. we are joined by the secretary of the treasury, timothy geithner. thank you, mr. secretary. good to see you. give us your sense of the state of the american economy. there is some good news. a couple days ago there were jobless claims that were 100,000 worse than expected. what's going on? >> it is better, but we still face enormous challenges, and it's going to be a while before we're confident we're going to have any sustained recovery in place. but we have an economy falling at a remarkably rapid rate. we were losing jobs at 600,000, 700,000 a month. the rate of the declining economy is still dramatic and the rate of job losses still very significant. those are encouraging signs we're seeing improvement in the financial markets, more confidence by consumers, and businesses here and around the world, and that is due to the strength of the policies that this government working with the congress and countries around the world have put in place. the policies have...