On April 26, 2012, in San Francisco at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the Commonwealth Club hosted US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner. Adam Lashinsky of Fortune magazine asked him about the state of U.S. and Global Economies before he headed off with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the 2012 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

Geithner reminded the audience of the crisis the Obama Aministration inherited at the end of 2008, with a nine percent drop in growth and millions more people unemployed every month. He felt the bailouts and stimulus packages were necessary based on his studies of history. Too often governments try to reach prosperity buy cutting their way to austerity, often stalling their recovery. A measured stimulus with steady growth has brought the US economy back from the brink. He knows there are continuing Occupy protests concerned about the economic injustice of the one percent toward the ninety-nine percent.

The global economy is split with the rapid growth in Asia and debt crisis in Europe. He thinks it is important to continue to support European efforts to resolve the crisis. He hopes China will change its policy toward the exchange rates of its currency with the dollar. Despite the differences between America, China and Europe, they all have rapidly aging populations, rising energy demands and the need for continued growth.

Also covering this event were Grace Lee of CBS-TV, Mark Niu of CCTV, Doug Sovern of CBS Radio, Carolyn Tyler of ABC-TV.

Finally, Wendy Wanderman of the Commonwealth Club will be moving on. Congratulations! You will be missed.

Copyright 2012 DJ Cline All rights reserved.