nobody has had a better perch for which to view the economy and make a judgment about the economy going forward and as i understand when you were secretary you had to have your money in a blind trust and now the blind trust presumably is over i don't want you to give the names of the stocks of the what you want to do if you are free to do it. but gives an idea of the composition in terms of the bonds, stocks, portfolio which you have had a chance to establish in recent months it >> well, first of all, you are a great investor. you do very good very careful work. one of the things i've learned during my career is i'm not a great investor so i need to find great investors. i believe the system is the financial system is stable, banking systems are in better shape. i do believe clearly the recovery process has begun. you and i have a common worry about the fiscal crisis in this country. >> we are going to get to that. >> you have one of the best lines as it relates to that but anyway, you need to understand also that what wendy and i are going to do is develop careers to a conservation in

and where the economy will be 18 months from now. but we try to factor in all the aspects of fiscal policy to the -- >> so you're trying to unwind with the fiscal policy as well. >> part of the difficulties in forecasting the economy. >> the gentlemen's time is expired. mr. lynch is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. chairman. i certainly appreciate the difficulty we're in. i know a lot of the members will recall that the federal balance sheet before the crisis was 800 billion, and now it's somewhere in 2.1 trillion. i generally agree and understand what the idea of the term deposit facility and also the reverse repurchase agreements to soak up all this liquidity that's sloshing around in the economy and which makes the economy less responsive to your interest rate decisions, as you say, pushing on a string. do you think that those two mechanisms will be sufficient to re-attach or make the economy more responsive to interest rate controls that are traditionally used? >> yes, i think so. we have really dealt in two

eric, a national sales tax and economy crusher? >> an economy crusher, welcome to bm campaign promise number 88, broken. no new taxes to anyone making under $250,000 bucks. here is a tax on everyone and everything. anything from a book, a $30 book now costs $36. a dinner out, an ipad, a $500 ipad, $600. even a car, ford fiesta almost $3,000 more. if you're a consumer, you're being taxed anyway and you're worried about health care and now this, everything you buy more tax, tax, tax, tax, enough, stop! >> that means shut go the wallets? >> well, you know, the vat tax is another tool. they can use it any way they want, temporarily, adjustable rate and the primary tax and we do away with income tax. the truth is people use it all over the world. europe and asia used the vat tax for decades and right now very few other options for us to try to solve the deficit problem. you've got to have one or the other. and you can't complain about the deficit and say we can't raise income for the government. >> brenda: well. >> variables are built i

economy created as many jobs as were created last month, 3 years. and yet the 162,000 new jobs did not put a dent in the unemployment rate which remains at 9.7%. 15 million americans were still looking for work in march and of those, 6.5 million have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks and the broadest measure of unemployment, those who have given up looking for a job or cannot find a full time job bumped up do 16.9%. joining me now the president's top economic adviser, dr. larry summers. dr. summers, thanks so much for joining us. >> good to be with you, jake. >> if you remove the temporary census worker job, 48,000 you're left with 114,000 new jobs. big businesses have retained earnings. they are not spending that money on creating new jobs. they're investing abroad, they're buying their own stock. they're buying other companies. why are they not creating new jobs. >> they're starting to. we're in a very different place than we were a year ago, a year ago we were losing 600,000 jobs a month. now the process of job creation has started. we expec

and our view is that we provide continued support to the economy with lower interest rates to the economy will begin to grow. we'll see more strengths and yields remain low and that in turn, you know, should make increased opportunities for banks to make profitable loves. when i say possible loans to banks, they will go head and make them. again, we're just simply supporting a low cost of funds for banks, which makes everything else being equal in easier for them to raise cash to make loans. there is a little bit of pushing on a stranger and unless banks feel there are good opportunities and right now were still recovering from this very deep recession, they're going to be very cautious and they are very cautious. but going forward, they think i'm safe to say were already beginning to see some improvement in banks, how they look in their willingness to make loans and i suspect will see improvements going forward. >> the other thing i hear from constituents at town hall meetings other than health care, there are a few other concerns is that a large portion of our population depends on thei

and global economy. it used to be part of cbs. it was called cbs market watch, and cbs sold its stake to dow jones and we were bought -- part of news corp. when rupert murdoch bought -- host: you are bought -- now part of the dow jones/wall street journal group. california, very, independent. caller: the question i have is, are they doing any studies on the length and which people have been unemployed? it seems to me my perception is this, the figures are two dimensional and lack a third element. we have people, never in their lifetime, are being unemployment for a longer length of time and i am just wondering, do any of the numbers take into play the corrosive effects it can have on society in which you have huge amounts of really skilled, talented people? guest: that is right, we have been talking all morning about the statistics, a record number of people unemployed for more than six months. a real good story in "the wall street journal" on this topic this morning. it is getting attention from policy makers. host: for logger th

we have a what used to be called a mixed economy. we are not a socialist society in the sense that the government owns a lot of the means of production, and the critical industries. the political process interacts with these other. the results are not good. -- with each other. the results are not good. i do not think we are about to sacrifice our freedom and liberty even though as a practical matter there is a shared responsibility between the government and private sectors. this is one of new ones. looking back historically, -- nuance. looking back historically, if you go back to the 1920's, the federal government was very small. they spend less than 3% of our gross domestic product. after world war ii and the great depression, we emerged with a government that was much larger and have many more responsibilities. in some ways, i think it is over expanded. we have been irresponsible but paying for everything. despite the increase in government

we will do what it takes to save jobs, save the economy and that was his point of view.and you talk about my mother. he would be telling me i need to work out, need to get more sleep. >> and terms of the other people on the political stage, seem to me that going up to the election , you probably felt that barack obama was both more knowledgeable and had more interest in what was going on in the financial crisis than john mccain. is that a fair assessment? >> let's say, it is no doubt fair that i had the conversations i had with john mccain were just as frequent as they were with barack obama. they were more difficult and i certainly, he certainly gave me more anxiety about all of that. and, you

the economy so far has been holding up. s&p analysts saying that the immunity for the political situation no longer holds true and, of course, today, you saw a lot of money coming out of that market, christine. >> and here in asia, what is the latest in the saga? >> they upped the offer by about 8%, or peabody did to $3.3 billion. macarthur is rejecting that offer. they're going to go ahead with that shareholder meeting on april 12th to vote on its purchase or offer for glouster coal. it's a complicated deal, which in effect gifts noble about 25% in macarthur. peabody has asked the government to intervene. analysts are saying this could be a stalling tactic because peabody, they might be trying to have some of those major shareholders like cnoc and others come on board. >> lots of strategy going on behind the scenes there that we don't know about. let's get a quick thought from darius now. darius, looking at your notes, i understand that you're actually buying the japanese yen. >> yes. i believe that will be the most attrac

david, you are a risk to the economy. nick is a risk with his nuclear weapons policy. >> it is another attempt to frighten people. we now have a budget deficit the same size at greece. don't take it from me. take it from the 100,000 business leaders. these great british businesses will help us out of recession saying cut the waste and stop the job tax next year. i have one specific proposal where we should come together more effectively. i want to see the security council as a war cabinet if i become prime minister. afghanistan is the top priority getting it right. the leaders of the other two main parties need to come to that. they need to make sure they are seeing the advice from the security services, from the generals, from the chief of staff. you have to bring people together. >> the only thing i would add to this discussion is if politicians will talk to each other, what we need to do is be up front about our priorities. we need to be up front about what we would seek in any discussion. dealing with a fiscal deficit

is and free economies so i think as long as the economy remains relatively open and free that is not something i would be worried about. i have two quick questions do you think that with frank 98 behavioral innovations and therefore we will never have a mathematical understanding of the structure? or do think it is plausible we will get there? second, if you take trial and error that part of that if of failure is letting failure fail that the losers in the process of eight process to understand innovation to is that three inherent tension in democratic capitalism and if you do how to deal with it? >> the first question is doesn't make it impossible? i think that is right again i will advertise that talking about the innovation that economic growth is precisely because of that no one knows which innovations will work or where they will come from so there is an element of unpredictability to economic growth that is inherent in that and i am in that camp. so the next question innovation and creates losers as well as of winners and what type of political dynamic does that create in our s

economy generally has performed very well. we if at times we have not performed well. -- we have had times where we have not performed well. it has not been a huge drag on economic growth and prosperity. it may be in the future. that ought to give you some sense that we are very flexible and adaptable as a society. there are underlying strength in the american economy that we tend to underestimate it seems to me. host: that color reference to the postal system. the next segment will be the chairman of the coastal commission. -- postal commission. punta gorda, independent line. caller: i agree with the previous caller. last week we saw some tremendous insight into the motivation behind the health care bill. john dingell made a comment that after the legislation was passed, that the legislation needed to be passed in order to control the people. the media is not picking up on this. nobody is talking about it. i would like to know why. guest: i did not see the comment. i do not know what he meant by it or the context in which it

one year ago, the economy was shrinking rapidly. today, the economy is growing. in fact, we've seen the fastest turn around in growth in nearly three decades. but you're here and i'm here because we've got more work to do. until this progress is felt not just on wall street but on main street, we can't be satisfied. until the millions of our neighbors who are looking for work can find a job, and wages are growing at a meaningful pace, we may be able to claim a technical recovery but we will not have truly recovered. and even as we seek to revive this economy, it's also incumbent on us to rebuild it stronger than before. we don't want an economy that has the same weaknesses that led to this crisis. and that means addressing some of the underlying problems that led to this turmoil and devastation in the first place. now, one of the most significant contributors to this recession was a financial crisis as dire as any we've known in generations, at least since the 30s. and that crisis was borne of a failure of responsibility. from wall street all the way to washingto

>> i think you can say generally as the economy is getting stronger and the economy is getting stronger, you know, we're probably just on the verge now of what we think to be a sustained period of job creation, finally. and we're going to continue to reinforce that recovery. the financial system as a whole, as i said, is in a much stronger place today. the critical thing we did was to move quickly, not just to stabilize thing, but to make sure we recapitalize the financial system with private money. >> my thanks to treasury secretary tim geithner. up next on "the wall street journal report," are there secrets to success? how do you get it? how do you keep it? one of the world's most profitable message makers and the business legend who impacted a generation of leaders clue me in. and become a fan on facebook. >>> this week has been a very special one for me. my new book "the ten laws of enduring success" hit bookstores this past week. in writing the book, i tried to identify what makes success a life long pursuit for some and what we can learn from their journeys. i tried to look at the

i think, you know, the economy's like a giant oil tanker.ound but once it's moving. >> but once we change course and we see the horizon in the right direction, we do get excited about it, hal. >> it's true. >> i have to tell you, i'm much happier reporting on the potential for good economic news than i am of the likelihood of a bad economy. >> no question. i certainly see more grins around this place than i did the last time we talked about this particular issue. and then, gee, what was the number last year about this time in the stock market? nearly half of what it is? >> yeah. we're up 16%. >> i would hardly call that a green shoot even. i would call that a full-blown forest, god's tear on eden. jobs lag behind. that's always the case. it will be a big, important issue. but i don't think you can disregard it. >> i would say part of the issue is that it doesn't all seem fair. it doesn't seem fair when the economy's going down or when it comes up. i think that's part of how you contextualize it. let's move on. at a congressional meeting this

it's still a very tough economy.nd as i said earlier, it will take a long time to heal what was damaged across the basic american sense of security it will take some time. and we're going to keep working to make sure people get back to work, incomes are growing, the gains of growth are shared more broadly, and since i'm much more confident that we'll salvage that, i'm confident we'll have a will as a country to bring down those deficits. the entire tone of the american political debate on budgets has changed. we had a long period where people said deficits don't matter, governments don't have to pay for things, you can cut taxes for the rich, that's changed dramatically. nobody can look at our fiscal period today and say that we can afford to ignore that later. so i think that helps a bit because that means it's going to be easier for us to do the right and necessary thing when the economy is stronger. >> tim geithner, thank you very much. >> nice to see you, fareed. >> this case is a threat to goldman and the banks

nobody has had a better perch from which to view the economy and make judgments about the economy goingforward. as i a understand when you were the secretary, you had to have your money in a blind trust and now the blind trust presumably is over. i don't want you to give us the names of stocks although if you want to give you are free to do it. but give us an idea of the composition in terms of the bonds, stocks would ever of the portfolio which you had a chance to establish recently. >> well, first of all you are a great investor. you do very good and very careful work. one of the things i learned during my career is i'm not a great investor, so i need to find great investors. i believe the system is the financial system is stable, the banking system is in better shape. i do believe clearly the recovery process has begun. you and i have a common worry about the fiscal crisis. >> we are going to get to that. >> one of the best lines i've heard as it relates to that. but anyway, so i am -- you need to understand also what we are looking to do, we are going to devote a balance of the care

is the nation that will lead the global economy., as politicians in washington debate endlessly about whether to act, our own military has determined we can no longer afford not to. some in the press may be wondering why we are announcing offshore drilling in a hangar at andrews air force base. if there is any doubt about the leadership that our military is showing, you need to look at this f 18 fighter and the light armored vehicle behind me. the army and marine corps have been testing this vehicle on a mixture of biofuels. this navy fighter jet, appropriately called "the green hornet" will be flown for the first time in just a few days on earth day. if tests go as

this stuff does not happen in a bad economy, maybe because this isn't such a bad economy and hardly inancy pelosi or congress pouring good money after bad to goose it. dagen, what do you think. >> right on. you know-- >> with a southern accent can you say that again. >> right on. >> ben did it well. >> neil: he could not. >> right on, right on. >> see? >> right on. >> neil: all right. all right. >> right on. >> right on. >> this is, it's not going to get in the way of the democrats spng money and you're already-- ben isn't getting in the way. >> they have the trogan horse in there, the stimulus panel has gone from 787 billion already to 862 billion and going to go to at least a trillion dollars. they're extending existing programs, they're adding new ones ap raising government spending and it will continue until somebody says no and i bet you that's bond buyers. >> to me it seems like charles, global warming. global warming, hot out global warming and cold out. and we need more spending because the proof is in the pudding and it works or we don't see anything working so you can have it

it is good news, relatively speaking, for the economy. it looks like the economy is on the mend, rebounding, and it is a real recovery. but at the same time, with economics there always two hands and it is not very strong. the economy still looks to be pretty weak. there are a lot of people unemployed. a lot of people who have been unemployed for really long times, more than six months. so it is a mixed report, but there it is. host: what is the report -- is that every friday? guest: it comes out once a month, released by the labor department. host: the first friday of each month? guest: and reporters get locked in a room for a half an hour with the numbers. host: who do we get locked into the room with? and this is the report, put out by the bureau of labor statistics. it is on our website, c- span.org. so, you get locked in the room with this news release for a half an hour. at 8:00 -- are not allowed to leave until it o'clock 30 a.m., -- guest: that's right, and we've given ourselves funds. we have a half an hour to analyzer -- analyze

and now, as the economy spirals downward, or more or less the threat of the economy spiraling downward we elected a president who is a keynesian economist on steroids. he believes, i've heard it directly from his lips, in short range, that franklin delano roosevelt back in the great depression of the 1930's lost his nerve on spending, dblet spend enough money. if he spent a lot of money, it's the opinion of the president, the depression would have been over in the 1930's instead of having to wait for the second world war that brought about the most effective stimulus plan ever. but i'll also submit that when the stock market crashed in october of 1929 and we saw my iowa president do some things that f.d.r. may well have approved of, and f.d.r. went in with the new deal which in my view was a really bad deal, then president obama's view is a pretty ty good deal, would have been better if he'd spent a lot more money, it didn't bring about a recovery from the depression started in october of 1929. what it did, when the federal government borrowed a lot of money, and they borrowed it from

economy. in ireland of the three biggest banks together had balance sheets to times the size of the irish economy. in iceland well iceland how could we become like iceland? iceland the banks became 11 to 13 times the size of the country. i think the banks are getting bigger. next time they fail, there is nothing i can assure you in economics orval law or physics that says the amount of offsetting impetus to can provide the economy through monetary policy or for fiscal policy will match the negative sharp targeting from the collapse of the financial system. in 1930 if the federal government had wanted to do a sensible what we regard as a sensible fiscal policy and a fiscal stimulus because they were having a major problem they look to this estimate that the federal government could have done a fiscal story was of 1% of gdp because the government was much smaller than now. that wouldn't have made a difference. we increased over several years 40%. next time 83 the next time we may not have the ca

take thousands of millions out of the economy now, take 6 billion pounds out of the economy now, and think of the risk to jobs and businesses. i say to the conservatives, of course we want efficiency savings and of course we want to deal with waste, but we cannot afford to see private investment so small and then public investment cut at this time and lots of jobs put at risk. >> david cameron. >> please tell us you won't do that. >> 6 billion pounds is one out of every 100 pounds the government spends. what small business in this recession, what big business hasn't had to make that sort of decision? many people are making a much bigger decision. turn it round the other way and think about it like this. gordon is effectively saying, "i want to go on wasting money now so i put up your taxes later." why should we pay our taxes for government waste? >> we've got a responsibility for the overall growth rate of the economy. we've got to get this economy moving forward. you can't do it with private investment alone. the government has got to play its role. now, next year, we'll make these

they can't, you know, agree to be in an economy where the south korean economy was maybe in 1975. >>so the box gets smaller and smaller. >> the regime has painted itself ideologically into a core. >> the u.s. has a few troops in south korea, and some member of the audience asks should we withdraw troops from south korea, and your opinions be? well, if you talk to any expert on military strategy, they will say it makes strategic sense to withdraw american troops from the peninsula because then you'd be able to respond better to a north korean situation. this situation is where held hostage because anything we would do against north korea and well inside the north koreans to attack seoul. they don't need nuclear weapons. they can do that with conventional weapons. so i think that will to withdraw american to do not make us better able to wish bond militarily, it would petrosian under a north pressure to do all those things but so far he is accused the americans of preventing. namely unify the peninsula, improving the standard of living among his people and, of course, he can't do the.

and how should we measure the success of that economy? this economy should not be measured by the size of the bonuses on wall street. the success of our economy should not be measured by the billion-dollar quarterly profits of wall street firms. the success of this economy needs to be measured by how well we build the financial foundations for working families throughout our nation. do we create the ability to have the next generation do better than we did? do we create living-wage jobs that enable a family to have significant opportunities for their children? do we proceed to strengthen as we've been working at here in this chamber the structure of health care? do families in america have a share in the increased productivity of our nation, which has not been the case since 1974, the year i came out of high school? oh, yes, our nation had a huge surge in productivity, a huge surge in national wel, but -- national wealth, but that has not been shared with working families. that's a diversion from what happened in the earlier era. how do w

a free market economy is the only way to go in america. i don't know if we have a true free market economy in this country. there's a bit of crony capitalism going on as far as, you know, who gets to fail and who gets to succeed. but, you know, on the small business scale, which is where i think the free market economy is kind of the most true, in a way, it's the only economic system i could ever imagine because that's how entrepreneurs can thrive and grow with dpe tition and failing and succeeding. you need to fall a little bit to be able to stand up. i think it's really important to have a free market economy. i think it's the only way that entrepreneurs can survive in america. >> considering the prices we've just had, free markets really is the only way out of it. the government doesn't spend the dollars it takes from somebody else. and when they take it from somebody else and later spend it, there's a tax, a burn. they only spend about 80% in a productive way. individuals are better served hanging on to their own money and spending as

economy.but it is not going to be a heavy growth sector in our econo economy. manufacturing jobs are now less than -- i think it is about 10% to 13% of our economy. the growth today is more service jobs and information age types of jobs, jobs that require skills and education. host: at the same time, there's an article on the front page of the "wall street journal" this morning that talks about auto towns reviving and how they are coming back and some of the american auto companies are rehiring workers. guest: well, i certainly think that that is a positive story that we are going to see play out in 2010. one estimate said up to a million more cars will be bought by american consumers this year. the bailouts seem to have stabilized the companies. ford is doing very well. so, i do think we will see job creation in the auto sector which should ripple out as well into smaller manufacturing companies and suppliers and dealers as well. general motors has announced they are going to open back up som

david, you're a risk to the economy. nick's a risk to our security with his nuclear weapons policy, you're a risk to the economy. >> i just think it's another attempt to try and frighten people. after 13 years of failure, 13 years in which we now have a budget deficit the same size as greece. don't take it from me, take it from the 1,100 business leaders, people who run sainsbury's, mothercare, next, marks & spencer's, these great british businesses who are going to help us out of recession, saying cut the waste this year, stop the jobs tax next year. to go back to frank's question, i do have one specific proposal where we really think we should come together much more effectively. that is, i want to see the national security council sitting as a war cabinet from day one if i become prime minister. because, day one, afghanistan is the top priority, getting it right. i would invite, as prime minister, the leaders of the other two main parties to come to that meeting several times a year to make sure they were really seein

economy and the global economy. host: it is to be a part of cbs? >> we will lead this recorded segment and take you live to charlotte, north carolina. he will be speaking at a lithium battery manufacturing company. it is about jobs and the economy. live coverage on c-span. [applause] >> thank you, guys. hello, everybody. hello. good to see you. everybody, please, have a seat. thank you so much for the warm welcome. to bob, thank you for the terrific introduction. i want to thank brian morehead for the great war -- for the great whotour. we have the governor that is to win a best -- a great job on the behalf of all the people of north carolina. please give her a round of applause. [applause] >> i think it is important to note that the state of north carolina has provided enormous support for expansion here at celgard as well. it is the combination of both federal and state that makes a big difference. the lieutenant governor is here. please stand up. [applause] >> the hot shot young up-and- coming mayor of charlotte is in the house, anthony fox. [ap

i'm not talking about other economies.i talked to my european counterparts and american counterparts. all of them were surprise. but that was outrageous -- were surprised. but that was outrageous for me. how our economy depends on raw materials. i never understood that we are so much dependent on raw materials and this made me talk about the modernization, about technology. but for the crisis, probably we would live by our eninertia and living with the high prices on oil and gas. i'm happy that this crisis happened. the economy has fallen down, but it is bad that this crisis made people suffer, many people lost their jobs, it hit people very hard. but this crisis should change our mindset, our economic approach and thus far it hasn't changed much. many businesspeople and ordinary people are waiting for high oil prices, it's $85 a barrel now. it's ok now. maybe it will be $140 someday, then we can rest easy doing nothing, but the problem is that this is top-down development and one day, the price will fall and the prices wi

obama approval on the economy.iking after the largest failure of the market economy in 2008 probably since the great depression. democrats have been losing control. this financial regulation is a place with two contending visions collide. as you heard from the congresswoman, the republican argument is that more government intervention is the problem. democrats i think want to make the case that what led to this disaster was the hands-off approach that the republican administration took, the bush administration, the low tax, low regulation approach that their agenda was built around led to this. i think you're going to see these contending both policy and political visions very clearly on display if this bill comes -- >> governor, on the economy taxes are a big piece of this. here is a provocative thought reported by the long angles times. a key question in this midterm election year is whether democrats will get cold feet over raising taxes during hard economic times. quote, they're in a push-pull situation said ro

i would just remind the great maxim of politics, when the economy is bad, the economy is the only issue. and you don't go into an election at 9.7% unemployment and don't think that are you not going to be held liable for it. i think -- . >> lehrer: as long as it stays that way. >> well, an average 54,000 new jobs every month this quarter. they lost an average of 753,000 jobs every month first quarter of 2009. but it's a long way down to-- from 9.7 down to a tolerable level politically. the democrats are still very much on the defensive. barney frank, democratic chairman, the house banking committee said no democrat can really run on the slogan that things would have sucked worse if i hadn't been here. i think that's the problem the democrats have. >> we would have gone over the abyss, the precipice if we hadn't done what we had doneful okay, don't tell people out of work that things are better. >> i agree, maybe not quite in that language. you know, economically, it's good news. and psychologically i think for the country to get any good news is just feels good. but politically, i don't

but to take money out u out of the economy you put the economy at risk. i meal an emergency budget in a few weeks time putting the very work we have done in jeopardy and no other country in the world is prepared to do that now. >> confusing the economy with the government. what we're saying is save government waste to put money back into people's pockets. saving one out of every 100 pounds. that is something every small business, every large business, many families have had to do in this country and the government should do the same. gordon's argument in a way is let me go on wasting your money so i can put up your taxes next year. people urning 20,000 pounds, 21,000 pounds. these are not rich people. they should not be paying for the mistakes of the bankers. >> gordon brown talks about the plan of the future but has no details on it. david cameron talks about it now and has no details now. surely what we can do is get the chancellors and the vice chance horse and parties altogether. -- chancellors and parties altogether. talk about how long it is going t

debt relative to the economy would explode from 53 to 90% of the economy. net interest would more than quadruple. this path is clearly unsustainable. that is the tip of the iceberg. moody's credit bridging agency revealed it looks at the proportion of federal revenues dedicated to paying interest as a key element for maintaining the aaa rating. they expect a large, creditworthy sovereign borrowers like the west to devote less than 10% of federal revenues to pay interest. under the president's proposal, we will hit that mark this year. lucky for us, moody's will grant the u.s. action wiggle room because in judgment, we can writes our canhip. -- our listingship. i supported the creation of a bipartisan commission to restore some discipline to the federal ledger. now that you are an official member of the president's commission, congratulations. i hope you use this market as an opportunity to lay a foundation for that effort. we are prepared to assist you in process by establishing greater discipline. the key is tax reform. when the u.s. first implemented inco

and the european economy and latin american economy? >> i do. crystal ball, you never kid yourself you've got a crystal ball. but i do have some views on some of the fundamental shifts taking place in the world today. the financial crisis has, if anything, accelerated it and that's the shift in central gravity from west to east. this is about the rise of asia. this is talked about as if china is the only topic of agenda but it's not. india as a whole, parts of latin america. i believe africa is beginning to show quite significant signs of growth now. is so there's a lot going on in the emerging market. >> rose: should we talk about that... exactly my point. emerging markets rather than a shift to asia? because brazil is not in asia. >> yes, you should talk about it as a shift of emerging markets although it's true that the critical mass is asia. >> and the population. >> and this has implications. it has implications at the level of coordination on the world stage of all sorts of matters of common interest. the emergence of the g-20 as

and then you think of the economy. and, you know, with any recession, the party in party will have problems even if they inherited the recession. and if you have the worst economic downturn since the end of world war ii, that's even more problematic. but the thing about it is, it's for than it should be for democrats because strategic decision, the calculation that president obama and the democratic congressional leadership made to focus last year on health care more than on economy and jobs, that's left democrats even more exposed than they would be in this kind of recession. remember in 1992 when he was running for president, bill clinton said if elected, i'm going to focus on the economy like a laser beam. what a great metaphor, focus like a laser beam. now, you could have a great argument about whether a president, a congress, a federal government -- how much they can affect the course, the trajectory of the economy and how much they could affect unemployment. but from the voters standpoint, they want you to give a

and see the economy as a big problem? the question would be has president obama pursued policies that you feel would help to revive this american economy because you see that as one of the pillars of america's global strength? >> we are facing short-term economic stress and long-term economic weakness and the combination of those is troubling. it was the result of many people and many failures and it was popular that wall street is certainly to a large degree to blame for what happened. so is mean streak. shore -- sore the mortgage bankers who gave mortgages to people with no capacity to play them. what about individuals who signed loans in excess to everything they could pay? the regulators who didn't blow the whistle, the rating agencies who say that these industry -- that wall street was selling were somehow highly secure and even the president said the bucks stops here. he shares responsibility as well. president bush. for the economic distress which is occurring. president obama has not been as effective as he could

if the economy continues to move, all be it slowly in the direction it's moving, it may not have come that far by the 2010 elections but it's clearer

his exact quote is, some day the economy will recover and the fed should raise the federal funds rate not assume some day. would you agree with this assessmentment? how long would unemployment have to go in order for you to think it is appropriate to raise the federal funds rate? do you agree with dr. ball's assessment that the fed should give greater weight than usual to unemployment when deciding how to set rates? i raise this question because as you know, the national urban league released its state of black america report for 2009 yesterday. we know that last month our blacks were unemployed at nearly twice the rate of whites 15.9% to 8.8%. the gap since 1974 is just barely closing. in considering the question on the federal funds rate, do you consider this wealth and employment gap to be a serious problem? do you think that a rising tide for the overall economy will actually reduce the gap based on your experience as an economist should we be targeting stimulus to the nunlt -- communities with the greatest needs on and on and on. i guess i've been talking to you and others about

the economy. the president welcomed the positive job growth numbers on friday saying the u.s. is beginning to turn the corner. with us live, the chair of his council of economic advisors, dr. christina romer. welcome back to "meet the press." >> great to be with you. >> this was the positive news, 162,000 jobs that were created in the month of march. some of those temporary workers working on the census, and those who are sort of underemployed takes that unemployment rate still higher. yet with those caveats, what did this mean? >> it meant we certainly had positive job growth. even when you take out what you mentioned, which is the effect of the census workers. we had some 48,000 people hired by the census in march. we also probably had a snow rebound effect. we think the big storms push down the numbers in february and artificially pushed them up in march. even taking those into account, we think we had good solid employment growth. as the president said, that's the beginning. >> the worst is ov

debt relative to the economy would explode from 53 to 90% of the economy. net interest would more than quadruple. this path is clearly unsustainable. that is the tip of the iceberg. moody's credit bridging agency revealed it looks at the proportion of federal revenues dedicated to paying interest as a key element for maintaining the aaa rating. they expect a large, creditworthy sovereign borrowers like the west to devote less than 10% of federal revenues to pay interest. under the president's proposal, we will hit that mark this year. lucky for us, moody's will grant the u.s. action wiggle room because in judgment, we can writes our canhip. -- our listingship. i supported the creation of a bipartisan commission to restore some discipline to the federal ledger. now that you are an official member of the president's commission, congratulations. i hope you use this market as an opportunity to lay a foundation for that effort. we are prepared to assist you in process by establishing greater discipline. the key is tax reform. when the u.s. first implemented inco

economy is now beginning to recover. however, the recovery will continue to be sub-par as businesses to lay critical hiring and investment decisions due to the uncertainty generated by president obama and congressional democrats to increase taxes, raise their prices, an act of killing regulations, and generate a dangerous level of federal debt. despite recent guidance from washington bank examiners about commercial mortgage loans, i am concerned the bank examiners were exacerbating real estate problems through their inflexibility. pressed by regulators, community and regional banks are not renewing reforming commercial mortgage loans even though their underlying cash flow can easily service the debt. that said, i would like to share my concerns about monetary policy going forward. we are in danger of repeating mistakes from the 1970's. because of the lag time between monetary policy decisions in their effect of the federal reserve must act to prevent inflation well before the public perceives that prices are rising. . .

now, standard oil was the lifeblood of the economy, a manufacturing economy, transportation economy. that was the fuel of that economy. but people had become convinced because the leadership of teddy roosevelt that while bate could be beautiful in america under some circumstances and it certainly had lots of private benefits, the couple so be dangerous to society. it is a very simple point and roosevelt i think was a very simple and direct thinker on this issue and was just as much concerned by the way about the political implications of these massive trusts, it was the industrial trust and railroad trust that drew his attention. he was just as worried about the political side as the economic side. but the economic side is important, the economic side is the way we did a lot of the theory and practice. let me ask you who in this room -- most of the oil companies but we did very well. they say john rockefeller did very well and the town of williamsburg did even better because they rebuild it. i think that he was trying to make up. who in this room would like to recreate the standard o

the american free market economy. >> a free market economy is the only way to go in america.t know if we have a true free-market economy in this country there is definitely a bit of crony capitalism going on as far as who gets to fail and tickets to succeed. on the small-business scale, which is where i think the free market economy is the most true, it is the only economic system i can imagine where on to bring yours can thrive and grow. -- or on to bring yours -- you need to be able to fall little bit. you need to be able to stand up. i think it is important to have a free market economy. >> free market is the only way out of the crisis we just had. individuals are better served handing over their own money. absolutely, a free market. if you look at the economy's who have choked off free development, -- free markets are the only way you can get out of this. >> in a free-market economy, anyone has the ability to open a business. over 600,000 businesses are open each year in the united states alone. due to the nature of capitalism, when third of these businesses will fail wit

the economy continues to require the support of accommodative monetary policies. however, we have been working too ensure that we have the tools and to reverse at the appropriate time the currently very high degree of monetary stimulus. we have full confidence when the time comes we will be ready to do so. thank you mr. chairman. >> i thank the chairman for his statement and we'll now recognize members for five minutes each. and i'll recognize myself officially for five minutes. chairman bernanke i guess one thing i usually am pretty aggressive about is the balance between unemployment and inflation or emphasis on unemployment and again seem to be more emphasis in your statement about making sure we counter inflation than on the side -- the employment side. i guess my first question wour -- would be how should the high unemployment rate factor into the fed's timing and sequencing decisions and if you could elaborate on that a little bit more. >> certainly. of course as you know we have a dual mandate from the congress to pursue both maximum employment and price st

the economy was contracting -- now the economy is growing. the markets are back. we're making progress. we're moving in the right direction. but, keep in mind, i didn't run for president just to get back to where we were when we started. i want us to do better than we were doing. i want folks to have more opportunity. i want people to have more and better jobs. and i want our young people to be getting better educations and more access to college. it's time to rebuild our economy on a new foundation so that we've got real and sustained growth. it's time to extend opportunity to every corner of main street, in every city and every town and every county in america, so that young people don't feel like they've got to move someplace else to make their way. they can stay right here in quincy. they can stay in monroe. they can stay in macon. they can stay in fort madison. it's time to create conditions so that americans who work hard can gain ground again, and they don't have to take out a bunch of credit card debt. they don't have to endanger their long-term financial

yen do, their economy floated?ou're me, or one of us here. and we hear of our manufacturers, for instance, saying they cannot compete. i've been to manufacturers in upstate new york that make great product. they're selling them in china. the chinese are now copying their products. not letting them sell them in china anymore for all kinds of -- but then going to sell them here. and this firm is worried it's going to go oust business. i hear this story over and over again. this is a high-end product. it's the ceramic that deals with pollution in coal-producing electricity plants. what do you do if you're us? i've been talking about this for five years. talking gets you nowhere. and we're ready to act. what do you suggest we do? what do i tell all those workers who have lost their jobs? what do i tell good new york manufacturers, who are being put out of business, they believe, by unfair competition? >> senator, it's an important issue, and i think we should continue to press for a more flexible -- >> don't i think we