Henry Paulson, the former Treasury secretary who okayed a bailout of U.S. banks during the latest financial crisis, believes that the United States will emerge from the European debt crisis unharmed.

The European debt crisis has seen countries like Greece ask for bailouts as they struggle to find a stable long-term budget to save the countries, according to Bloomberg. Paulson stated during a biotechnology industry conference in Boston on Tuesday that:

“Although Europe is a drag, the U.S. will continue to muddle along with growth that really isn’t enough to make a dent in employment.”

Paulson, who was Treasury secretary from July 2006 until January 2009, believes that Europe will eventually sort itself out and stabilize without a “catastrophic outcome.” He went on to state, according to The San Francisco Chronicle, that:

“It’s hard for people over here to understand how committed the Europeans are to the monetary union. The monetary union isn’t sustainable unless you forge something that is more like a political union. That’s much more different. You’ve got 17 different countries over there.”

The former Treasury secretary also discussed the U.S. financial crisis with another former Treasury secretary, Robert Turin. Henry Paulson asserted that he believes government is more to blame than the banks who asked for the bailouts. Bloomberg reports that Paulson explained that government policies are encouraging people to save little and borrow too much. He stated:

“From the beginning of time, we’ve had financial crises. People always blame the banks and for good reason. When you look for the root causes, they’re almost always failed government policies.”

To solve the problem, he doesn’t believe that regulation could be the answer. He explains:

“If you ever have to rely on regulation to save us that won’t be enough because unless you think the banks are trying to blow themselves up you’re never going to uncover all the problems in advance.”

Former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson received massive criticism for his decision to bail out banks during the U.S. financial crisis. Boston.com reports that he stated:

“What I never was able to make the public understand was that the rescues weren’t for the banks, they were for the public. Every rescue, every bailout we did, I have no regrets because it was better than the alternative…. The money we put out, it prevented a collapse.”

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