If he keeps saying this every day perhaps it will come true. I will keep printing it each time he says it.
Saturday September 8, 8:08 am Eastern Time
Treasury's O'Neill says U.S. economy recovering
SUZHOU, China, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said on Saturday the
U.S. economy was on the road to recovery and he had not been surprised to see the monthly
unemployment skip higher in August.
``I think the correction process is going
on ... and that we're going to see a return to some much better rate of
growth as we go through the year and into next year,'' O'Neill told reporters,
suggesting the country was headed back toward a rate of gross domestic
product growth above three percent.
O'Neill, in China for a meeting of Asia-Pacific finance ministers, said he was
not surprised by the jump in the August unemployment rate to 4.9 percent --
the highest in four years -- but said that it was a lagging indicator and that
other signs suggested growth ahead.
``None of us like the fact that more people are unemployed,'' O'Neill said.
But he said anecdotal evidence of stronger orders and a liquidation of
inventories were creating a basis for improved U.S. performance.
O'Neill repeated that it was critical for Japan, the world's number two
economy which is teetering on the brink of recession, to take action to implement promised reforms aimed at bolstering its sagging
growth.
``What (Prime Minister Junichiro) Koizumi and his aides have said they are going to do ... let's get on with it,'' O'Neill said on the
sidelines of an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation finance ministers meeting in the Chinese city of Suzhou.
O'Neill said there was no discussion of currency exchange rates on the first day of a two-day APEC meeting, a sensitive subject
ahead of his visit to Tokyo next week, when Japanese officials are expected to raise the subject of the weakening dollar. |
