Real-Time Coverage of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at WSJ Deals & Dealmakers Conference

This is CNBC.com's log of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's Keynote Interview with David Wessel at the WSJ Deals & Dealmakers Conference being held in New York on Wednesday, June 27, 2007. 

You can also see live video coverage of the entire conference on the CNBC.com Live Events Player.

1:04PM:  The event is listed as "Lunch & Keynote Interview" starting at 12:55PM.  It appears the participants will eat lunch first, then we'll hear from Paulson.  Stay tuned.

1:17PM:  We're now hearing that Paulson will start speaking at 1:30 PM ET.

1:30PM:  Still eating.  Should be any minute now.

1:32PM:  Paulson is being introduced by David Wessel.

1:33PM:  Treasury Dept wants to create a regulatory structure for the 21st century.

1:35PM:  President's Working Group looked very carefully at hedge funds and found value to the economy but also great challenges.  Sees need for increased vigilance on part of all the stakeholders.  Putting together two panels:  one with leading investors, the second with leading managers.  Both groups are being asked to come up with best practices.

1:37PM: I don't see Ben Bernanke or the Federal Reserve as a barrier to changing bank regulation.

1:38PM: The FSA approach used by the British has worked well.  I don't see us ever getting to that model.  I think we have the most competitive capital markets in the world.  This isn't saying how should we become like the FSA, it's about coming up with a framework that will serve us well for many years to come.

1:40PM  I'm not satisfied with the pace of change anywhere in the world.  I wasn't satisfied with the pace of change at Goldman Sachs.  But there are constraints.

1:42PM: There's something wrong with the tax code.  The way we tax businesses is overly complex and when you think about competitiveness of the U.S. economy it is a major issue.

1:43PM: There's a lot of focus today on tax rates for private equity and tax funds.  I don't think it makes sense to single out one industry.  It's not just hedge funds and private equity that organize themselves as partnerships.  There are tax advantages for partnerships and it is a good way to promote risk taking.

1:44PM: It does not make sense to single out one industry and make tax policy for just that industry.

1:45PM: When I came to Washington it was clear there was a political climate against tax reform.  I'm starting to think much more about the complexity of the corporate tax code because when we look at competitiveness we also need to look at taxes as a big issue for competitiveness.

CONTINUED

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