Even though the US is still registering high levels of unemployment that are expected to abate only gradually, outgoing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner believes that the country's recovery is entering its final stages.

"I think in the recovery, if you do basketball, we're in the early part of the fourth quarter," he explained in an interview published this morning in The Wall Street Journal.

The US has long been leading the markets in the global recovery even as the country faces off against its "fiscal cliff" and politicians attempt to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. Nevertheless, Geithner commented that "we are through the big adjustment in housing".

Geithner also praised progress made in Europe. "(They) have done this really important thing, which is to successfully, at least for now, take out of the markets the risk of some catastrophic collapse," he said.

JM

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