Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner: On the Road to Recovery

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

/ CBS News

The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the country's 18-month long recession ended in June 2009, but the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, has a different perspective.

"On any common sense definition, the average American is below where he was before or his family in terms of real income GDP," Buffett said Thursday during an interview with CNBC. "We're still in a recession. And we're not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out of it."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner agrees with Buffett on the part that the country will recover from the recession sooner or later.

"I totally agree with him....We had a decade where the middle class saw no growth in income. And we saw a huge-- a devastating financial crisis that put more than eight million Americans out of work, forced businesses across the country to close," Geithner told CBS News anchor Katie Couric in an exclusive interview Thursday. "But we've now been growing for more than a year. We had private sector job growth start much earlier than it did in the last two recoveries.  And we have -- we are a very strong country, a very resilient country. And we're getting stronger now. And, again, if you look at what's happening in high tech and manufacturing and exports you can see a lot of reasons for confidence."

Geithner also agreed with Buffett that the average American is having a tough time. 

"...most people feel like it's still so difficult for them. And-- and they're right. It's not just unemployment's at 10 percent. But they're not back to where they were. You know, this was a terribly deep hole and we're coming out of it but we're not coming out if it fast enough to satisfy people. And that's why we're so impatient to work with Congress to do more," he said.

Couric asked Geithner when he thought the economy would turn around positively for the American people.  He said that the private sector has had eight months of job growth and that businesses are expanding investment at a "pretty healthy rate."

However, on Thursday, the Labor Department said that jobless claims rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 465,000, suggesting that the job market is not responding as quickly to various economic stimuli.  

Couric noted that many business are making due with fewer people. 

"They're not hiring fast enough to bring down the unemployment rate, and that's our major challenge. Our major challenge is to make sure that we work with Congress to do more to help businesses bring more Americans back to work more quickly," Geithner said.

On Thursday, the House joined the Senate in passing a bill that will provide a $30 billion loan fund and tax incentives aimed at stimulating hiring in small businesses.

"This country absolutely will get back to the point where most Americans who want a job are gonna be able to find a job," Geithner told Couric. "It's just gonna take longer than we like because this is a crisis caused, again, by people spending too much, living beyond their means, saving too little. And a long period of under-investing in the middle class and infrastructure and things like that. But those are things we can fix. And where we are strong today we are very strong."  

Geithner also talked about the impact of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) on the American psyche. "... the specter, the spectacle of us having to give-- and President Bush had to take this burden on initially, the-- billions of dollars to the institutions that were at the heart of the crisis was a huge cause of the anger that swept across the country," he said.

"No American thought that was fair. Nobody understood why it was necessary. But it was absolutely necessary. And what we did is get most of that money back at much lower cost for taxpayers. So we solved this crisis, this financial crisis. Not the broader economic crisis."

[mb91764]

I watch this man the other night on PBS show,and not one time the he really answer a quesiton in plain english.He repeated the same words over and over.It had the gall to justified the bank bailout as a evil that we had no choice but to do it.Even the big bonuses were something we were force to do.One thing I kind of stump on was that we made the banks strong and that was the only good thing that happen and he was proud of it.He said that all this spending and debt was a good thing.In plain talk helping Wall street and not main street was the best thing for our country.And the best comment was that we got get out there and spend our money if we want to really get thing going.WHAT MONEY?Then he said something that was a complete spin,we have to learn to save to.Okay which one,SAVE OR SPEND?A wall street man who's cluless of what the real world is suffering from.GREED<CORRUPTION.

[janchup]

Turbo dispensing the necessary propaganda for the day in order to maintain his vast delusions. I don't see how this clown can sleep at night.

[gep1955]

The reason the banks failed is because corrupt pols passed laws forcing banks to make bad loans. The reason Detroit failed is corrupt pols supported the unions, not the shareholders and piled on pages of regulations on how to bulid "the right kind of cars". The reason jobs get shipped abroad is corrupt politicians pile on rules, regulationas and taxes on companies to the point that to stay in business they have to leave the country. The reason the southern border is open is because corrupt pols are courting/buying the hispanic vote with our tax dollars. THE POLITICIANS IN WASHINGTON ARE CORRUPT. VOTE ALL THE INCUMBENT BUMS OUT.

[tsigili]

Just more lies from Team Obama.

[JTeeINeire]

Please watch GEITHNER FUNDING GEORGIAN MAFIA on Youtube.

[stormerF3]

Kuric can only do,the lowest of low,a Tax Cheat telling us the economy is getting better,is that not what Biden and Obama have been saying for the last 6 months? The Summer of recovery,was a bust,the stimulis is a joke,and The Un-employment rate is still as bad.

[RobAla]

However, this is not a paved road. It is a dirt road, made into a muddy slippery mess by a gully washer named President Obama and a host of off track vehicles tearing it to pieces (the current ridiculous Congress). We may eventually get there, but it will be in spite of Washington - not because of the job killing measures being taken.

We need responsible people in Congress, to offset the inexperience in the Whitehouse.

[wfw3536]

I saw this softball interview. It is sad that CBS had a chance to ask some tough questions, but did not. When Tim G says we are on the road to recovery it just makes me sick. He should be in our town,state, or nation as see how terrible things are for regular folks. Maybe these folks should get of of Washington or get their heads out of the sand.

[JTeeINeire]

Please watch GEITHNER FUNDING GEORGIAN MAFIA on Youtube.

[sjc_1]

Years before the 2008 election I said that one of these times the Republicans were going to screw things up SO bad, that we could not fix them. This was VERY close to that time.

[stormerF3]

Geithner is not a republican, your koolaid runneth over.

[RealiteBites]

From the article:
"And we have -- we are a very strong country, a very resilient country. And we're getting stronger now. And, again, if you look at what's happening in high tech and manufacturing and exports you can see a lot of reasons for confidence."
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Okay, so I was out of the loop for a while from politics. But now I remember why I got to avoiding headlines, becoming engrossed instead in stuff like reality tv. Because it's just WAY too frustrating to feel like people really aren't on top of things. And it feels like that from both sides of the aisle.

This is a global economy, so shouldn't every discussion of the state of the economy include a discussion on our position in the market - like isn't it totally meaningless to suggest that if manufacturing and exports show growth that that alone is sufficient data to portray the overall health of the market if when those sectors grow, imports grow twice as much. Same problem with just talking about tax cuts because that's how things were done in the 90's - the Feds have kept the interest rates at zero, and even if businesses didn't have to pay any taxes, they STILL wouldn't be competitive with China's operating costs.

So if somebody's beating you when it comes to production, then they beat you to the jobs - it's not that complicated. Complicated to solve - but not complicated to understand the problem ... or at least it shouldn't be???

[RealiteBites]

So I just watched the video of Katie's interview with Timothy Geithner - so at first, Katie asked whether he believed the assertion that there were going to be some sectors of manufacturing that just aren't going to ever come back. And then when Katie asked him again about it, he dodged the question? He looked so shifty and untrustworthy when he did that, because everybody knows that huge chunks of the manufacturing sector have been outsourced to China.

You sort of got the sense that Geithner believes this is one of those 'mental recessions' that were the bane of Phil Gramm's existence. Which then made him seem delusional. I mean like trade with China began in full force around the year 2000 - and the economy's been crap ever since. This isn't a 'hole' that we're going to 'dig out of' if people just 'feel confident'. I think this guy's incompetent! And he could very well be in power for the next 2 years ... sigh, I'm going back to watching reality tv ...