The U.S. economy will be penalized by the current crisis in credit markets but the overall outlook was still benign, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday.

"There will be a penalty but the backdrop of the strength of the economy, the corporations, the institutions, is such that we are resilient," Paulson was quoted in the Times newspaper as saying.

Paulson told the newspaper that the market turmoil had been caused by a "lack of discipline".

"I don't think it is the job of regulators to protect against these losses," he was quoted as saying.