Old Alan is quoted as saying, “I still do not fully understand why it happened.” Really?
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Poor old Alan, formerly the architect of America’s prosperity, is now the fall guy. There he was being grilled by Representative Henry Waxman and his crew. There he was being treated as just a normal human being. What a comedown.
While finally admitting to a lack of understanding, he still refuses to take the blame. I’m guessing that going from taking all of the credit to sharing the blame is too great a transition for someone of such limited intelligence and integrity.
Let’s go back a bit to get a little perspective on this ideologue. Here is a short take lifted from Wikipedia:
In the early 1950s, Greenspan began an association with famed novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand that would last until her death in 1982. He wrote for Rand’s newsletters and authored several essays in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Rand stood beside him at his 1974 swearing-in as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
I’ll probably have to classify that as a close, 30-year relationship with someone of like mind. Many people have heard of the old dingbat. Her ‘philosophy’ was so simpleminded that it readily appealed to junior high school kids. It can be boiled down to, “Greed is good.”
Greed being good, there was no reason to worry about it doing any harm. There was no reason for those pesky regulations. They just got in the way of those good, greedy elites.
How stupid of me. I had always thought that greed was the primary reason regulations were needed.
Greenspan’s simpleminded philosophy lead, naturally, to simplistic policy. Every problem could be fixed by raising or lowering the Fed Rate a quarter or half point. Perhaps his theme song should be, Poor Johnny One-note.
To fully appreciate what happened, let’s go back to LBJ’s administration. Lyndon wanted us to have both guns and butter. If he had put us on a war footing for the little unfriendliness in Vietnam, some people might have been reticent to support it. So, he simply found a way to put some expenditures off-budget.
Later, this became the all-time favorite of various presidents and congresses. Some people are naive enough to think that our $10 trillion debt is large. Please don’t tell them that unfunded liabilities top $54 trillion.
Anyway, deregulation was one of the two mantras of the extreme right. Enter Ronald Reagan, stage right. Coming from Hollywood, he knew how to put people in a good mood: throw a party. He also knew better than to tell those attending that he was putting it all on their grandchildrens’ credit cards.
Yes, children, everyone was in a good mood. Let’s have a good time. Debt and deregulation. Just don’t let the voters see the reel real Reagan, the real bankruptcy of the simplistic conservative economic miracle.
To repeat: if you have greed, you need regulation. I hate to shatter the delusions of Alan and all the other junior high mentalities, the acolytes of Ayn Rand, but greed is greed. When one person feels justified in taking what belongs to someone else, it can ultimately lead to causing problems for the victim. Enough greed can make everyone a victim.
Greenspan, Gramm, Rubin, McCain and others of that ilk may disagree but the primary role of government is to protect the citizenry. Not all threats are from Baghdad, Tehran and Pyongyang. The biggest threat to us since the end of the Cold War has come from Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, the extreme right and the White House.
The reason Greenspan cannot understand what happened is because he is unable to break loose and see his ‘philosophy’ for the juvenile nonsense it is. The reason he cannot admit to error is his lack of understanding and his hubris.
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