Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday the United States carries a “substantial” share of responsibility for the global economic crisis that could cost the world up to $4 trillion in lost output this year. While the crisis began in the United States, Geithner said its damage has spread widely, with serious challenges facing much of the world. “Never before in modern times has so much of the world been simultaneously hit by a confluence of economic and financial turmoil such as we are now living through,” Geithner told the Economic Club of Washington. The Treasury chief cited Wednesday's economic forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that projected global economic output will drop 1.3 percent this year, the first decline in more than six decades. Compared with a normal global growth rate of 4 percent, the lost output in 2009 could total $3 trillion to $4 trillion, Geithner said. In the middle of the worst financial conditions in decades, Geithner said it is key to seek a new and better balanced model for growth that relies less on exporting to U.S. consumer markets. “We must set ourselves on a path so that one country, or group of countries, does not consume in excess while another set of countries produces in excess,” he said. Geithner spoke ahead of Friday meetings of the finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) rich democracies and a session of the Group of Twenty (G20), which includes big emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil.
