Times of India Geithner, US monetary maven, says India's economic policy is admirable Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN, Apr 4, 2010, 09.44am IST WASHINGTON: The most striking aspect about Timorthy Geithner as he walks into the room is how relaxed he looks, considering he carries the weight of the US – and pretty much the world's – economy on his shoulders. Perhaps that should have been "youthful shoulders." Geithner at 47 looks 32, fellow monetary maven Ken Duberstein once complained, adding that "you need to have in these compelling times gray hair and gravitas. It's not that he's not qualified; it's how he looks." His secret service code-name is fencing master, and his fitness and agility (he's said to be top notch in tennis, basketball, windsurfing, and snowboarding among other sports) is the envy of Washington's political salons and power corridors. Indeed, from the time he took over as US Treasury Secretary in January 2009, the knives have been out for Tim Geithner. Congress, speaking for Main Street, accuses him of coddling _Wall Street_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Geithner-US-monetary-maven-says-Indias-economic-policy-is-admir able/articleshow/5759063.cms#) . Wall Street accuses him of abetting socialism. "Yet when the history books are written," Atlantic magazine said in a recent assessment, "Geithner will be recognized as Barack Obama's key lieutenant in the struggle to right the economy and fix the _finance_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Geithner-US-monetary-maven-says-Indias-ec onomic-policy-is-admirable/articleshow/5759063.cms#) system." Geithner himself is blasé about being on what many regard as the burning deck, having famously – and drily – remarked once that he "lives for such crises." On this particular spring afternoon he's meeting four Indian correspondents at the historic Treasury Department building ahead of his visit to India next week, Geithner has reason to be pleased. The US economy is finally showing a small uptick, adding 163,000 jobs in March. One of the oldest wings of the executive (The Dept of Treasury was established in 1779) is pulling its weight, and pundits are starting to extol the man they vilified only a few months earlier as a lackey of capitalism for pulling the US out of a trough, with the Treasury at the center of the grand rescue. Geithner, who is the 75th Treasury Secretary, is as proximate to Obama (physically too, the Treasury Building is next to the White House) as his forbear Alexander Hamilton was to George Washington -- for more than one reason. Both share an NGO legacy. During the early 1980s, Geithner's father Peter Geithner oversaw Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in _Indonesia_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Geithner-US-monetary-maven-says-In dias-economic-policy-is-admirable/articleshow/5759063.cms#) developed by Ann Dunham Soetoro, President Barack Obama's mother. Prior to that, Geithner Sr headed the Ford Foundation operations in India, which led to a toddler Tim spending his early years in New Delhi, where he had a crack at cricket but remained true to baseball. He's returned to India a few times thereafter as he worked his way through Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Washington's lobbyists' lane K Street, Wall Street, and the government, and retains an unvarnished respect for New Delhi, praising its "steady hand" and steely resolve in meeting the economic downturn that shook much of the world. "I have huge admiration for India's policies in the economic, _financial_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Geithner-US-monetary-maven-says-Indias-economic-policy-is-admirable/articles how/5759063.cms#) (sector) ... for what they have accomplished in dealing with this difficult time," he said in an interview. "One reason I am going to India is to get a better sense of what is happening there -- both in the economy and the broaden reform process in the financial sector and elsewhere. As always I am going to make sure that the leaders in Indian get to understand directly how we are managing our challenges here," he said. US learning economic lessons from India – who would have thunk? The visit of a US Treasury Secretary to India may not seem as consequential as that of a Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) or Defense Secretary (Bob Gates), but it has the virtue of being totally delinked from AfPak issues, since those two countries are insignificant in the Treasury scheme of things. Instead, the visit seals India's hyphenation with China at least insofar as economic sweepstakes go. Geithner's main agenda in New Delhi is to launch the new US-India Economic and Financial Partnership, along with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, along the same lines as the one Washington has with Beijing. But any comparison between the two Asian giants stops right there – and it's not because of the disparity in their economic clout that drives many Indians to despair. Instead, Geithner suggests, it is the level of comfort US has with India's transparency and fairness, compared with China, with whom Washington has been on the verge of an ugly spat over currency _exchange rate_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Geithner-US-monetary-maven-says-Indias-economic-policy-is-admirable/articleshow/5759063.cms#) manipulation. "The differences are mostly defined by the differences in our economies," Geithner said cautiously, reluctant to be drawn into a discussion on China. "We're not going to be talking in India about the exchange rate regime." India, he says, is "becoming more open, runs a flexible exchange rate regime. Its basic pattern in growth has been less export dependent, oriented over time. Different economy, different structure, different choices." It's an agreeable consonance that pleases Washington, which is otherwise uncomfortable with some of India's diplomatic and political choices (vis-à-vis AfPak and _Iran_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Geithner-US-monetary-maven-says-Indias-economic-policy-is-admirable/articleshow/5759063. cms#) ). But Geithner insists Obama has a "deep commitment" to strengthening the relationship with New Delhi and a "deep appreciation" for the challenges India is facing. That's the message, he says, that he will be bringing -- to the place where he first swung a bat.
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