U.S. Economy Healing, Getting Stronger – Geithner

U.S. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner affirmed that the economy is “healing” and that it is “getting stronger.”

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Geithner stressed that there are three “main” challenges coming out of the financial crisis, which are about “growth, financial repair and reform and the deep fiscal challenges facing the country.”

He indicated that with economic growth, “we started the year with a little less momentum and we’ve got some new headwinds, most prominently of course in oil,” but the “underlying trends in the economy show much more resilience.”

He affirmed that the economy “is definitely healing,” saying “I believe we can be confident that the economy is healing and gradually getting stronger, and there’s much to be encouraged about in the shape of this early period of expansion and recovery.”

On the financial repair and reform, Geithner said “our core objective is to make the United States again the strongest financial system in the world, the best at channeling the savings of investors around the world to finance the ideas of growing companies with the strongest protections for investors and a much better set of shock absorbers, cushions against future shocks and crises.”

Furthermore, he stressed that “our policy has been and will always be – that a strong dollar is in our interest as a country.”

“We will never embrace a strategy of trying to weaken our currency to gain economic advantage at the expense of our trading partners,” he remarked.