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 Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner settled into a comfortable leather chair to be interviewed by Charlie Rose Tuesday afternoon as the SIFMA annual meeting came to a close. The talk between the two spanned a number of subjects including the economy, Geithner's feelings on regulatory reform and the government's interventions in the private sector during the worst of the financial crisis. Asked by Rose what he thought was the most urgent items before him, Geithner said, "[What is] urgent is getting the private sector moving again so that people who want a job can get a job. Urgent is fixing a still broken financial system and the still terribly broken framework that was responsible for the crisis we've gone through." The Treasury secretary said the unprecedented intervention in the private sector by the government was a "necessary thing to bring the financial system back from the brink. We've achieved the initial signs of recovery much more quickly than anyone expected." Although Rose pressed him numerous times on how long the government planned to be a major stakeholder in institutions such as Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) or American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG), Geithner refused to be pinned down, only commenting that "we won't hold a stake a day longer than we have to, and actually I think it will not be that long." Geithner did, however, repeatedly defend the government intervention and the current administration's stimulus bill, claiming that it was certainly necessary to stave off disaster. "The stimulus and getting credit flowing again were tremendously important for getting things to turn around when the economy was in free-fall. The achievements you see today are the consequences of government policy. The private sector couldn't have gotten it done by itself. "Right now we face this very difficult balance. We're doing everything possible to spur a recovery, and that's going to require continued government policy. But the danger is that you put the brakes on too early as they did in the 1930s. We're only at the early stages of recovery, and once we get that going we can turn and face the long-term challenges, but it's a difficult balance to strike. "We have to make sure we have credit flowing and establish incentives to get people investing again. We should be encouraged by what's happening. Americans are saving again, which is a very good thing, and you are starting to see an economy that growing again. In stark contrast to the end of last year, you see people moving out of risk-free assets and showing greater confidence in future growth." - George White See more coverage from this conference: Jamie Dimon on the financial crisis Jamie Dimon on rescuing other banks Johnstone and Kruszewski on client trust Finance execs on reg reform at SIFMA Conference Board's Spector on compensation Mary Shapiro on the crisis, regulatory overhaul
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