Geithner Has No Desire to Lead the Fed When Bernanke Retires

 By Korollos Shalaby

The U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday that "there is no chance" that he will be proposed as chairman of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and argued that the U.S. economy is in a more "resilient" state after the 2008 crisis.

"No chance. I have great respect for the institution, but that will be the privilege of another person," Geithner said in an interview with the website Politico on his last day in front of the Treasury.

The U.S. economic recovery is entering the final stretch, though unemployment remains high and will only gradually decrease, said the outgoing Treasury secretary there, Timothy Geithner.

"I believe in recovery. If this were basketball, we're starting the fourth quarter," Geithner said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Some media had mentioned the name of Treasury Secretary Geithner as president of the Federal Reserve (Fed), when Ben Bernanke’s term expires in 2014. Geithner, 51, said his future plans include returning to New York to be with his family and traveling with his wife, after three and a half years as head of the Treasury Secretary.

The U.S. economy is in an advanced chapter of its "recovery", said Geithner, which is currently at 7.8%. "That's the inevitable, terrible and tragic legacy of a financial crisis of this nature," he said.

However, he said there is still a "very substantial space" in fiscal policy to reduce the rate of unemployment. "It would be easier if it were accompanied by a long-term plan to reduce future deficits," he said, referring to the ongoing negotiations in Congress to agree on a new budget.

Finally, he used to take stock of his years as Secretary of the Treasury, in which the Congress had to bailout the financial industry and automotive industry. Geithner is a member of the economic team that worked with Obama in the White House to help stabilize the economy.

"I have worked with a president whom I admire deeply," he said. President Obama has already announced his election to succeed his former Geithner's chief of staff, Jack Lew, whose nomination must be approved by Congress.

The United States went further in debt than others to balance the nation's income and cut the risk of leverage in the financial system, "and had the large adjustment in the housing sector," Geithner said.

The recovery in Europe is in a nascent stage much but the continent has done "really important things, like remove market risk of a catastrophic collapse."

Last summer, the European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to do everything necessary to protect the euro and backed up that promise with a bond purchase program if a country needed him after requesting a bailout.

Korollos Shalaby is a nationally acknowledged mortgage expert with over 6 years experience as a loss mitigation expert and mortgage finance consultant. He has owned several companies and has been at the forefront of all lending and banking practices since 2006.