Future crises unlikely as severe as last: Geithner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday that the economy will face crises after it recovers from the deep recession that officially ended in 2009, but they will be less severe.

"I think it's very unlikely you'll see that again. And you're going to see people spending years and years reducing the risk that it will happen. But there will be a crisis in the future, hopefully far in the future," Geithner said in a live interview with Politico.

The banking crisis of 2008 helped push the economy into the longest and deepest economic recession since the Great Depression. Geithner said reforms made in response to the meltdown of major financial institutions would help stave off as damaging a downturn in the future.

"What the Wall Street reform act will do is give us the authority to make those crises less frequent, less damaging (and) to make the mistakes banks make, firms make, less traumatic," he said.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)