Dean Baker: How Alan Greenspan Destroyed America

[marmar]

The Guardian / By Dean Baker

How Alan Greenspan Destroyed America
The former Fed chair is promoting his new book. He should admit his role in the housing crisis, not insult our intelligence.


October 28, 2013 | Alan Greenspan will go down in history as the person most responsible for the enormous economic damage caused by the housing bubble and the subsequent collapse of the market. The United States is still down almost 9m jobs from its trend path. We are losing close to $1tn a year in potential output, with cumulative losses to date approaching $5tn.

These numbers correspond to millions of dreams ruined. Families who struggled to save enough to buy a home lost it when house prices plunged or they lost their jobs. Many older workers lose their job with little hope of ever finding another one, even though they are ill-prepared for retirement; young people getting out of school are facing the worst job market since the Great Depression, while buried in student loan debt.

The horror story could have easily been prevented had there been intelligent life at the Federal Reserve Board in the years when the housing bubble was growing to ever more dangerous proportions (2002-2006). But the Fed did nothing to curb the bubble. Arguably, it even acted to foster its growth with Greenspan cheering the development of exotic mortgages and completely ignoring its regulatory responsibilities.

Most people who had this incredible infamy attached to their name would have the decency to find a large rock to hide behind; but not Alan Greenspan. He apparently believes that he has not punished us enough. Greenspan has a new book which he is now hawking on radio and television shows everywhere. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/how-alan-greenspan-destroyed-america

[rickford66]

1. I must be smarter than Greenspan.

Two years before the crash I was overseas and was able to read international financial news daily. I saw the mortgage problem. When I returned I visited my financial advisor and made sure I wasn't involved in any of the mortgage mess that was developing. As a result, while many of my friends lost 30% to 50% of their investments and are still down quite a lot, I lost about 9% and recovered very quickly. I was listening to him in recent interviews. What a dope.

[unblock]

3. well done, but then again, it's not hard to be smarter than greenie.

overrated politicians are par for the course.

but overrated bureaucrats are not.

and in that realm, greenie is king amongst kings.


the only other guy who comes even close was that nutjob who went before congress and warned them, back when clinton handed off surplusses to shrub, of all the bad things that would happen if we paid off the national debt; so, we best pass shrub's wacky tax cuts to prevent that calamity.

who was that other nutjob, anyway?

oh, yeah, right, yeah, that was greenie, too.

wow.

[jtuck004]

8. Smarter than Greenspan? He didn't lose jack, kept his position, had it inherited by

people who would follow his policies, and has millions to draw on. People pay that little criminal to go places and speak, buy his books and applaud him, and we can see who it is. The criminal conspiracy we call banking, which we support with payments every month on the back of the most vulnerable, as well as most everyone else, think he hung the moon.

You post anonymously on an Internet msg board and lost 9%. Woohoo.

[rickford66]

10. Could you clarify your WooHoo comment please?

My post was about me not being blinded by the US lenders pushing all those mortgages. By being out of the country, even for a short while, the problem was very obvious from the international papers. Greenspan said almost nobody predicted the crash. The 9% I lost was because of the market reactions, not about any of my IRA investments. I don't have a lot of money and I intend to spread it out for as long as I can. Also I notice most people posting here are anonymous, as you are.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[DirkGently]

4. Ayn Rand protégé. Kind of says it all.

During the 1950s and 1960s Greenspan was a proponent of Objectivism, writing articles for Objectivist newsletters and contributing several essays for Rand's 1966 book Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal including an essay supporting the gold standard.[53][54] Rand stood beside him at his 1974 swearing-in as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Greenspan and Rand remained friends until her death in 1982.[44]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan

[jsr]

5. +1.

[johnd83]

6. The crash had its intended purpose

the rich got MUCH richer.

[rhett o rick]

7. Alan Greenspan is a poster boy for the irresponsible 1%. He practically destroyed

America's economy and now he is on a book tour. He even admits he screwed up. Millions of Americans are suffering because of his screw up and he gets to go on TV as a legitimate economist.

And what was his screw up? He didnt realize that greed would be more powerful than the desire to build a strong company or economy. He did not anticipate that individuals would sacrifice their companies for personal gain. He should be place in stocks and we should get to throw tomatoes at him.

[rickford66]

9. right

To paraphrase what I heard him say recently was that ... there should be no regulations because people acting in their own self interests would act responsibly. Well, the banksters did act in their own self interests and look where it got us.

[indepat]

11. At the same time, the Congress was fawning over Greenspan as if he were the second

coming.