Maria Bartiromo Interviews Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson on CNBC's "Closing Bell" Today (Transcript Included)

BARTIROMO:Let's talk about the global capital markets. How linked are the global markets today in your view? A couple of months ago we see Shanghai sell off, the rest of the world followed suit. Of course, we're back from that level on all of the markets. But how concerned should people be inAmerica that the markets are so linked and if we were to see a problem in Shanghai, these markets also fall out of bed. I mean, the central bank head in China just the other day expressed caution that the Shanghai market is global.

Mr. PAULSON:Well, I would say this. The world is increasingly integrated from a global. You know, our economies are increasing integrated. It's--we have a largely a global economy. This benefits the United States and it benefits many of our trading partners. So this--we start from the stand point that this is a--this is a major positive. I then go to the fact that the global economy is as strong and it has been over the last three or four years as I've seen them in my business lifetime. Strong growth around the world, relatively low levels of inflation, high levels of liquidity. That is a big positive. We have had exports growing faster in this country now for a number of quarters and strong economic growth outside of the US is a big benefit to the United States. That's helping our economy. That's helping create jobs. So I look first at the underlying economic fundamentals and I believe that markets are a derivative of the underlying economic fundamentals. There's always going to be volatility, but I think we have a healthy international economy.

BARTIROMO:Secretary Paulson, would you like to add anything else to the CNBC WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORT interview? I'm going to move on to Business Week here.

Mr. PAULSON:When we move on to Business Week.


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