On my part . Congressman, the action that the administration took obviously was to try within the law, within the authorities we have to remove restrictions that we thought were counterproductive, and if anything working against the goal of getting the kind of change in cuba that we all want which is a Movement Towards giving human rights and other issues of importance greater attention. I think that, you know, the transactions between the u. S. And cuban parties will be governed by law so there will be things like food sales. The payments will be easier for companies to comply with and purchasers to comply with, so i think it will be easier for u. S. Firms to do business with cuba but we havent opened up all the forms of support that exist in countries that we have normal relations with and weve been clear that cuba still has a long way to go to make the changes it has to make before we would have that kind of conversation. I agree that were not there yet. In 1993 cuba actually made the u. S. Dollar legal tender. And in my first year in the house in 2004 cuba then placed a 20 surcharge on remittances, dollars coming into cuba, which created i hate this term. I dont know how to use it on a human being but the term they use, mules carrying u. S. Dollars into cuba illegally and, you know, giving it out to their relatives, which i completely understand. With this going on is there any i dont want to know about the negotiations. Im not going to ask you about negotiations in a public hearing. But it would be my hope that there is something being done in terms of remittances as we move toward normalization. Is that something that youre in the steps that we took among other things there was some easing of travel restrictions and remittances so that would be easier for families. But as importantly, telecommunications has opened up, because exposure of cubans to the west, to the United States, to our values is part of what we think will bring real lasting change in cuba. Western union, actually, even sim remittances through western union. The concern i think its a pretty heavy surcharge on the u. S. Dollar. My time is rungning out. Thank you, mr. Chair. The gentlemans time has run out. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from new mexico, mr. Pierce. Its hard to know where to look. Further to the right than you think. But not all the way. The imf broke its longstanding rules according to the wall street journal and just in the inspection of loans or bailouts or however you want to say it, to greece. Would you be willing to commit today to reinstating those previous principles that were bypassed in the deal with greece . I dont think i would agree with that characterization. I think the imf did have an Exceptional Access Program with greece but thats something youll have to fight that out with people that say that you did. I think if you look at what was going on at the time if the imf had not stepped in the risk to the Global Economy was quite severe. And still is, frankly. So whats your stance on the export Oil Export Ban . Do you have a stance . Im sorry the Oil Export Ban for the u. S. . Its actually a matter thats not directly in my area. You dont have an opinion . I try to comment on the things that im responsible for. Mr. Secretary we just heardheard my friend from new york say that you are the secretary of treasury. The secretary of treasury who has come here to talk about our economy and to talk about the World Economy. It would be nice if you had with all respect, sir, i just have an observation to make. Im reading your written statement, and its replete with considerable progress in the rainbow stew that is characterized in the report of the World Economy and our economy in general. But when i google this morning i see that manufacturing is down in february. Another article comes up, manufacturing in new york is down in march. Another article said wholesale prices in decline for four months. As the secretary of treasury as the secretary of treasury here to tell us about the economy it would be nice if you told us some of those dark clouds instead of the sunny horizon that has been painted here. I find the lack of transparency in the report that youve issued to be stunning. In fact, one point you said we should in answer to a question of one of our friends on the other side of the aisle that we should teach the world about good policy. Now, we did teach the world about good policy because when we started printing money, the quantitative easing after 2008 a policy that improves your economy in a philosophy called beggar thy neighbor, and im goog ling to morning and im seeing Companies Across america are being devastated by the race to the bottom, that we talk to the rest of the world about economic principles and with them printing money and the value of our dollar is increasing dramatically, the losses that are being passed on to American Companies are being felt right now. So that would be a critical piece for you to be relaying to us, but i didnt hear anything about that. So, mr. Secretary of the treasury, that would have been a nice thing that you put in here. Im happy to answer the question. Im just making observations here at the end of the day, because we have people pointing out that there is nothing to talk about in the economic situation. But in the whole deal, much of the report goes into imf and the responsibilities to the imf. Nothing in your report says that the whole game depends on the europeans, primarily germany, to keep balingiling out greece. Now, the finance minister for greece just recently made a comment that we ought to tear up the whole agreement. Now, that is causing, just on the 13th of march, it would have been nice if your report said on the 13th of march the german population switched pretty dramatically to where they dont favor greece getting my more bailout. In fact, they want greece out of the eu which then sets up the prospect that other nations who are financing the sovereign debt for europe would be extremely cautious about loaning to italy to spain, to portugal, to other nations. Those would have been the nice things to hear about in this report about the economy, mr. Secretary, mr. Secretary of the World Economy that we heard youre here to testify about, but i didnt hear any of that. I yield back, mr. Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from colorado, mr. Froman. Thank you, mr. Chair and to my friend in new mexico, im going to give the secretary a chance to talk about that economy. Hopefully its a little closer so you can see it, sir, a slide from the economic reserve data chart, and what this is is civilian employment since 1970 and i circled the last few years in terms of job losses in 2008 coupled with job gains since then. Would you care to comment . This is for the United States as a whole. I have another slide mr. Secretary, that is for colorado where we suffered the same as the United States generally where our unemployment went sky high in 0809. It started coming down in the Obama Administration. It is now down to about 3. 5 or 4 . Would you like to comment on job growth . Thank you congressman, and i do appreciate the chance to comment, because undoubtedly there are Economic Statistics that go up and down month to month. There is a variety of them. There is no denying the trend of the u. S. Economy over this last year has been very strong growth. For several years, theres been strong employment growth. You compare the United States to europe or other parts of the world, were growing better and were creating more jobs than most of the developed world put together. I think if you ask the question of why i believe its because as i said earlier, we have a flexible and resilient people, and we responded with policy that worked. And i realize that the policy has not always been something that has been unanimous opinion about. I dont think the results are subject to question. We are in a better place now. Let me give you another slide from fred. And this is dow jones from 2005, and it shows a steady increase up to 18000 from a low point of about 6,000 in 2008 early 2009. Do you want to comment on that . Well, obviously, there has been a recovery in our Financial Markets where the losses from the Great Recession have been reversed, and if you look at the trend, the picture you just showed, people had their Retirement Savings restored investors got back what they lost. Weve seen in housing that Property Values are starting to come back up. There are still areas where its not fully there. Where weve seen a problem is that Income Growth has been slow to come back. The last year weve seen about 2 growth in wages. Thats good but wed like to see more. Were starting to see some pressure on wage growth, which is a good thing. For those of us who came of age in the 70s and 80s rooting for inflation does not feel like a national thing. But too low inflation is not a good thing. Everyone is now shooting to get to 2 and 2 is hard to achieve. Let me give you one more slide, and this one is on 30year conventional mortgages, which have seen a continual decline to the benefit of homeowners who are in a position to take advantage of that, down to about 3 or 3. 5 . There is no doubt that the affordability of Mortgage Finance has stayed very much within reach in terms of historical standards. The challenge, as we were discussing a bit earlier is that the process of qualifying for a mortgage has been too challenging for some. Let me change the subject. The good news is its still a market where mortgage financing is still very affordable. Let me just change it to someplace where i think there are some headwinds, and i would ask you as the secretary of treasury to watch out. And that is in this tremendous drop in oil and gas prices which i come from colorado so were an energyproducing state. Weve seen some layoffs. Now, i think our economy is Strong Enough to move forward through those layoffs but there is, within the Energy Sector you know, a lot of concern, and you know, there are a number of ways to deal with it. I would ask that your agency your department be mindful of this. Whether or not we may want to put some kind of tariff and be protectionists for our local industry i dont know, but ill let you respond. Without a doubt, if you look across the whole u. S. Economy, Lower Energy Prices have actually been a shot in the arm. Its been like a tax cut for most consumers and most businesses because everybody skumz consumes and relatively few produce. Equally undeniable is there are pockets of the country where rigorous activity has been slower. I would ask that the charts i have be entered into the record. Without objection, and the time for the gentleman has expired. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from ohio, mr. Stivers. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, im over here. By the way, i appreciate you recognizing the benefit of tax cuts just now. I want to talk to you a little bit about the economy and then Community Banks, and if we have time, Insurance Standards and maybe whats going on with the dol. But my local foundation the columbus foundation, just put out a report that said 145,000 people in central ohio in my area have been left out of this economic recovery because theyve given up looking for work. They dont have the skills they need, there is a real skill gap. If you extrapolate that across the country that means theres 11 Million People suffering today every day even though the state unemployment rates are down to u6. It still says 11 so thats a big number. I hope youre focusing today on those people that are left out. Im not going to ask for comment on that but i hope and pray youre focused on that because these are Great American people who are left out of our recovery and i hope youll spend a little time thinking about them. I do want to follow up on a question mr. Lucas brought up, or questions, about the plight of Community Banks. I had a recent conversation with a lady named linda. Shes shopping for a house and her local Community Bank stopped offering mortgages because they felt like the Regulatory Compliance was too heavy for them. Theyre a small Community Bank. And i wanted to kind of talk to you about in your role at epfsoc. Youve been there a little over two years in your role at fsoc. Im curious, how much time do you spend in your meetings at fsoc talking about trickledown regulation and how people like linda can get loans at their local banks. My district is legalrural. There are no big banks theyre rural. If they deny loans people cant get them. What do you put on that in round numbers . Im not sure i could give you a number. I can tell you every time weve discussed the Housing Finance system every time weve discussed rules, whether its at fsoc or informal conversations that we have, there is a very strong focus on what is the impact on Community Banks and how do we distinguish between is it a standalone agenda item at every fsoc meeting . If its not, i would just urge you to make it a standalone item of impact on our banks . If you could do it people like linda across this country would benefit from it. I do want to switch to International Insurance stuff. Im from columbus, ohio, the ohio state championship football team. I want to use a football analogy for you. It has team usa on the international Insurance Standards sort of taking a pause, taking a timeout to make sure we understand the impact on our domestic carriers of these International Rules before we move forward and charge ahead of importing european standards for American Companies. So congressman i dont think there is any plan to just import standards from europe. Our representatives participate in those to try to make sure there are high standards around the world but ultimately u. S. Authorities will make the u. S. Rules, National Authorities will make National Rules for the u. S. Thank you. Thats great. So have you conducted, as part of team usa in these international Insurance Standards, an analysis of how these potential impacts of the iais standards on domestic Insurance Industries in terms of financial, legal, accounting rejeemzre regimes these u. S. Companies now confront . There is ongoing work on this, and i know our office, Insurance Office pays a great deal of attention to what the impact of any rules changes would be. Do you do it in terms of what it means to policy, alters and customers . Do you take it to that level . I think the analysis is broad. I would be happy to get back to you. Please do and again getting back to people like linda that i talked to, there are a lot of policy holders and a lot of consumers that want to buy insurance products. Any standards you make will affect their ability and their cost of those products. So i would urge you to really take a look at that. I only have 16 seconds left. Have you coordinated or your department coordinated at treasury with the department of labor on this standard, new fiduciary standard the dol is proposing . Have they kept your labor folks in the loop and your policy . We have been aware as its gone through the process. Would you call it coordination, or is it just informing you . Theres been interagency discussion on the policy, butt its but its a department of labor rule. Time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman, mr. Ellison. Ive been talking about somalia for a long time, as you know but as you also know weve reached a frustrating point. Back on february 6, the bank that was doing most of the facilitation of International Transfers stepped out of the work, and now were pretty much at the end of the line. What can your office do to try to facilitate these remittances . Congressman, you and i have discussed this a number of times. I know the deep concern you have and were very sensitive to the problems that youre trying to address. I believe you had a discussion recently with our acting undersecretary and discussed the issue at some length. I think that the challenge is and i dont think there is any disagreement on this we all want to stop the flow of money to bad actors. No disagreement on that. I think we all also agree that people who are just trying to send money to their family members who are not bad actors is heartbreaking that they cant do so easily. Forgive me, secretary, i must say it is heartbreaking and i agree. But i think its also a National Security problem for the United States, and heres why. The narrative of al shabaab is the United States is your enemy, they wont even let your cousin send you money for school fees or for food. Dont worry about it, well give you the money. All you got to do is be our soldier soldier. Thats another factor that i think we absolutely cannot ignore. Its a humanitarian crisis but we are also playing to the narrative of a terrorist organization. I would like it if you guys would start thinking of it in both of those ways, not just a humanitarian way. The challenge is while we strive to be clear and we will work with you to be as clear as we can what the requirements are, what the rules are, we do not tell banks or