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00:00The Economist magazine's Buttonwood Gathering is an internationally renowned conference focused on the future of finance and global economic growth. Jason Furman chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors spoke at the event this morning here in New York and he joins me here in studio. Mr. Furman welcome to bottom line. It's a pleasure to have you on the broadcast. Thanks for having me sir. Let's start with Greece. What are you telling President Obama about the risk to the US economy over the developments in Greece if Greece does exit the euro would it do damage to the U.S.. There's no question that Greece faces some very serious issues and it's for Greece to work those issues through with its creditors including the Europeans and the IMF. And we're in conversation with all parties to those talks but it's between Greece and those parties insofar as you're talking about the US economy. We have real domestic momentum. We have real domestic strength. You see it in consumer spending business investment residential investment . Eighty seven percent of our economy is domestic. So I think we have the momentum to handle a slowdown in the rest of the world especially with low oil prices and low interest rates. So let's talk about the Friday jobs report because as Peter coaches told us Fed Governor Powell used the word great to describe the report but there are some parts of it that are not so great . Unemployment in the African-American community. Unemployment in the Latino community. Those numbers are still way too high . What's being done for people in those communities and for the community of Americans at large. There are some 30 million people who are still out of work. I think that's a great question. And even if we got our unemployment rate down further there's still a lot of parts of our economy that we'd want to work on and you just named a few of them. It's first of all important to understand that for every community a stronger economy is a benefit. So the unemployment rates for African-Americans and Hispanics came down in the past year at a faster pace than the overall unemployment rate so bringing that unemployment rate down helped. But it's not all we need to do . The president has an initiative called My Brother's Keeper that's very much focused on those communities. If we do everything from the preschool agenda he has through community college and beyond all of those are policies that would really help get at the employment and wage prospects of a number of groups that are being left further behind. OK sir you sit down and you have these conversations with President Obama and it looks good on paper but then as you well know politics gets in the middle of this. Is it a question of coming to the table not with what you want but what you might be willing to sacrifice in order to make some sort of compromise with the other side of the aisle. The president's always looking to get stuff done. He's always willing to make compromises as long as he's not compromising on his core goals of helping the middle class and people working to get into the middle class. I do think one of the encouraging things we've seen lately is you've seen a lot more convergence around the challenges of inequality of poverty of middle class incomes. And so once you all are defining the problem in a similar way I'm hopeful that that can help bring around the conversation to solutions to what is now a commonly agreed upon problem. Mr. Furman President Obama's scheduled to meet today with members of the Congressional Black Caucus . Those members are opposed to giving Mr. Obama trade promotion authority fast track authority on issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. How can the president get the Caucus and other Democrats at large onboard when they have so many disagreements with the president on where this country should be regarding trade. There's no question that trade is a divisive issue and that's why the president's working so hard to make sure we're negotiating a better trade agreement one that levels the playing field up that includes strong labor and environmental standards . So it's in the interests of our workers and our businesses . It's a fact that exports are associated with higher paying jobs up to 18 percent more. It's important that we put things into an agreement to make sure we take that and translate it into a tangible reality. Are you concerned that the strong U.S. dollar is hurting American businesses and their ability to do business overseas. This comes back a little bit to the first question we discussed the slowdown in growth in the rest of the world combined with a stronger dollar is a headwind for the U.S. economy right now. But we also have some tailwinds like the lower oil prices and our domestic momentum. So I think we should be able to make it through but it would certainly help a lot if in Washington we do what we need to to help. So we started the hour with my colleague Peter Cook he had interviewed the Fed Governor Jerome Powell. He said that Mr. Powell said low inflation gives the Fed time to remain patient as it considers when to raise rates. But with the labor market continuing to show strength why wait. I'm going to leave economic policy making my monetary policy making to the Fed . That's their choice but one thing I want to agree with Governor Powell on is audit the Fed would be dangerous. Would it would would job Vice President Obama to veto that. I would certainly advise him to be opposed to it. I don't tell the Fed what to do with monetary policy. The Congress shouldn't be telling the Fed what to do with monetary policy. They're an enormously transparent institution already. Any additional legislation would be somewhere between superfluous and highly counterproductive. What about critics who say that the Fed is not transparent enough. The Fed. All of its information is made public. All of the aspects of its balance sheets are made public. Its deliberations are made public. It has increased its communication and really leads the world in its communication. What that bill is about is about Congress supplanting its judgment as to what monetary policy should do to an authority that has conducted it in an independent manner . And all of us have been well served by the Fed's strong tradition of independent Mr. Furman we have about a minute left I mentioned at the beginning of this interview that you were at the Buttonwood gathering this morning. Future of Finance and global economic growth was on the agenda. What did you and your colleagues see in that arena. And is the United States poised to lead the global economy since I guess some people have said it here on Bloomberg that we're the least dirty shirt in the world right now. We're not where we want to be admittedly so but at least the U.S. is showing signs of economic life and momentum. Like any discussion in an international setting you heard an awful lot about the United States as the hope for the global economy is one of the leading lights in the global economy. We're thrilled to be in that position would be even happier if the global economy was firing on all engines and every country was contributing but at least there was a recognition that we're really leading the way in part because of the choices we made in fiscal policy monetary policy on financial policy that put us in this place. Jason Furman is chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors joining me here in studio. Mr. firm it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me .

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Republican Push on Fed Audit Is Dangerous, Furman Says

Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, talks about legislative proposal to increase oversight of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. labor market. Furman, speaking with Mark Crumpton on Bloomberg Television's "Bottom Line," also discusses the potential impact of the global slowdown on the U.S. economy. (Source: Bloomberg)

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