Dan Doctoroff, President, Bloomberg

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DAN DOCTOROFF, PRESIDENT, BLOOMBERG, TALKS ABOUT THE ECONOMY AND POLITICS AT BLOOMBERG TV

APRIL 26, 2011

SPEAKERS: ERIK SCHATZKER, BLOOMBERG NEWS ANCHOR

DEIRDRE BOLTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS ANCHOR

DAN DOCTOROFF, PRESIDENT, BLOOMBERG

07:30

ERIK SCHATZKER, BLOOMBERG NEWS ANCHOR: Bloomberg President, Dan Doctoroff, will be presiding. And this event is part of the C. Peter McCall Series on International Economics. Dan is here with us in the studio.

Dan, I can think of any number of people who would love to be in that chair, querying, interrogating, perhaps, Tim Geithner.

What do you think people want to know most from the Treasury Secretary? Where are you going to be focusing your line of question?

DAN DOCTOROFF, PRESIDENT, BLOOMBERG: Now, where do you begin? I mean, the questions that he has to deal with are so numerous and have enormous implications, whether it's the bond (ph), whether it is fears of inflation, whether it's slowing growth, whether it's the implementation of Dodd-Frank - I could go on and on and on.

This guy has the hardest job in the world other than the President.

DEIRDRE BOLTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS ANCHOR: Well, you mentioned, I mean, it's clearly an international crowd. You just hit on a lot of topics that are important to people all over the world.

Also, you told us earlier, I mean, the last time that he was in front of this particular group was pretty much two years ago. So there's going to be a lot of temperature taking as well, right? What has changed?

DOCTOROFF: Well, you think about the changes. I think he was last speaking in front of this group on March 25, 2009. We just heard the report about Ford earnings - the combined market cap of Ford and GM on March 25, 2009 was $8 billion.

Today, it's over a hundred billion dollars. So you know, part of this is what's happened over these last couple of years. And by the way, an interesting question is, you know, you've got the President being perceived as anti-business.

Given the success that we've seen in a lot of markets here, is that a fair perception?

SCHATZKER: You point out the last time he spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations, I remember the speech distinctly because he more or less told the crowd, they're going to have to get used to the idea that the banks need to make money if the economy is going to turn around.

That's actually happening. The economy maybe hasn't turned around, but it's certainly not contracting any longer. And then this two-year period happened where a lot of the attention when to international issues.

And Tim Geithner was arguing about what the U.S. policy on China should be. In many cases, he was right. The Chinese are allowing the yuans to appreciate.

Do you think he's going to get any credit for that now that the attention has returned to the domestic economy?

DOCTOROFF: Well, you know, it's really funny. I think that's one of the really interesting questions is do they get credit for it because a lot of the things that they said at the time have turned out to be true?

But we still have a lot of problems in this country and in the global economy. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. We're having lower growth in general forecasted now.

We have fears of inflation and global crises. Clearly, it's threatened global stability from a financial perspective. So the job never ends. And the new challenges is for him just to keep coming.

BOLTON: Well, you mentioned inflation. We know the Fed meeting begins today. I mean, I'm assuming no one in the crowd is going to treat Geithner as they would Bernanke.

But there has to be a lot of questions about the U.S. stances (ph) that Geithner may or may not be able to address about the U.S. staying on hold while some emerging market countries are actually raising rates.

DOCTOROFF: Well, that's a big question. Is U.S. policy actually creating bubbles in other markets, which ultimately rebound to affect the United States? And well, certainly...

BOLTON: Is it hurting our economic policy and our perception worldwide?

DOCTOROFF: Are we being perceived as a global leader, rather than acting in our own self-interest only? That's a very interesting question.

SCHATZKER: Dan, a recent headline, it would seem targeted directly at the Treasury Department, was S&P's decision to put the U.S. credit rating on negative watch with the potential to downgrade it into something in double A territory.

Tim Geithner told our colleague, Peter Cook, just a few days ago that the markets have responded to that already and brushed it off. Do you think the crowd is going to be as willing to tolerate that lack of reasoning?

DOCTOROFF: I don't know about this crowd this morning. But it's a great question. You know, Secretary Geithner said "no risk." The S&P report basically puts the risk at 1/3 over the next two years.

How do you rationalize those two points of view?

BOLTON: All right.

SCHATZKER: Dan, so good of you to join us here. Good luck with Tim Geithner. We're all looking forward to seeing what he has to say.

DOCTOROFF: Right, thank you.

07:35

***END OF TRANSCRIPT***

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