There is still much to do in Asia in raising disclosure standards and in allowing the market to provide the necessary discipline. Asia’s crises were a stark lesson that sweeping problems under the carpet did not solve them. I hardly need to remind this audience of that.
Although foreign economies also have been affected by financial turmoil, and growth among our trading partners is showing some signs of slowing, expanding exports should continue to help support economic activity in the United States. In the labor market, private payrolls decelerated over the course of 2007 and were reported to have been unchanged in January.