U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson spoke Thursday before the National Press Club, calling for stricter oversight of mortgage brokers — saying a strong dollar is in the national interest. The U.S. dollar hit a 12-year low Thursday in relation to the yen.
Paulson talks with Melissa Block about his recommendations for shoring up the nation's financial services sector.
The chairman of the president's working group on the financial markets told the National Press Club about the need to get the balance right between regulation and innovation and not squeeze the industry too tight.
"We still have real turmoil going on in our capital markets. We want to implement these recommendations with an eye toward not creating a burden that exacerbates today's market stresses," he tells Melissa Block.
He says his group brought together all of the top regulators in the U.S.
"They've come together with one voice that's very powerful," he says. " ... We're going to deal with these problems, but we need to do it in a balanced way because we don't want to hurt those consumers who are going to continue to need credit and are going to continue to benefit from our capital markets."
He says his group's recommendations don't scapegoat any one entity because "there are plenty of mistakes to go around." The key, he says, is to take steps to reduce the likelihood of going through these problems again.
The $168 billion stimulus package passed last month will send $300 to $1,200 to millions of consumers in May, June and July, and will be very helpful to the economy, he says.
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