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(AP) -  President Barack Obama said Friday the economy
is showing "glimmers of hope" despite continuing stresses and
signaled more steps to brighten the business climate.


      Obama commented to reporters after meeting at the White House
with members of his economic team, including Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner, economic adviser Larry Summers and Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.


      "What we're starting to see is glimmers of hope across the
economy," the president said, although he also noted that the
economy is "still under severe stress."


      "Whatever we do ultimately has to translate into economic
growth and jobs," Obama said.


      He said there has been a significant uptick in the number of
homeowners seeking to refinance their mortgages, which will put
money back into their pockets. 

He said a 20 percent increase last
month in the Small Business Administration's largest program means
that small companies, often prized as the backbone of the economy,
"are starting to get money."


      But Obama also pointed to the high rate of joblessness -- which
climbed to a 25-year high of 8.5 percent in March -- and
acknowledged that "we've still got a lot of work to do."


      "We're starting to see progress," he declared, "and if we
stick with it, if we don't flinch in the face of some difficulties,
then I feel absolutely convinced that we are going to get this
economy back on track."


      Obama said he and his advisers discussed the stability of the
financial system, the housing market and a program to help banks
clear their books of bad assets that have made normal lending
difficult if not impossible.


      Also at the meeting were Christina Romer, who heads the White
House Council of Economic Advisers; Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Securities and Exchange
Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro and Comptroller of the Currency
John Dugan.


      Friday's meeting was Obama's first with his economic team since
his return this week from an overseas trip partly focused on the
global economic slump. He participated in a meeting in London of
leaders from the 20 wealthiest and developing economies.


      The backdrop for Friday's was the still-fragile economy that has
begun to show hints of a possible recovery, including a strong
profit forecast from Wells Fargo & Co., a drop in claims for
unemployment benefits and predictions of solid April sales from
several retailers.


      Also promising were less jittery stock investors, shoppers and
homebuyers, slowly thawing credit markets that were once frozen and
stabilizing economic indicators that had been going from bad to
worse.


      All that has at least one Obama adviser sounding cautiously
optimistic.


      "There has been a substantial anecdotal flow over the last six
to eight weeks of things that felt a little bit better," said
Summers, director of Obama's National Economic Council. "The sense
of a ball falling off a table, which is what the economy has felt
like since the middle of last fall, I think we can be reasonably
confident that that is going to end within the next few months, and
we will no longer have that sense of a free-fall."
   

   But Summers, who spoke at the Economic Club of Washington, said
it was too soon to forecast how strong the rebound would be and
when it would take hold. 


He also refused to predict how high the
unemployment rate will rise before a sustainable recovery begins.
      

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Obama commented Friday after meeting with members of his economic team to discuss the economy and assess the progress of the steps the administration is taking to address the financial crisis.

Obama says economy showing 'glimmers of hope'

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