Would a Clinton presidency bring back Alan Greenspan?

[rhett o rick]

One thing that Corporate Democrats have in common with Republicons is their greed and love for Alan Greenspan. Alan is a disciple of Ayn Rand who believed that unregulated capitalism was the only way. Of course they were wrong. Greed does not raise all boats.

In 1963 our buddy Alan said:

“Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices. It is this superlatively moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats, and the chronic goad of fear.” (The Assault on Integrity, 1963)

And then in 2008, after the greatest heist in history, where up to $12 trillion with a T was transferred, without much fanfare, from the People (the 99%) to the Wealthy 1%, Alan admitted he had been wrong. Greed indeed wasn't self-regulating.

“Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, finally took some responsibility (sort of) for the crisis. He told Congress: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity – myself especially – are in a state of shocked disbelief…”

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/quotes-of-2008-we-are-in-a-state-of-shocked-disbelief-1220057.html

Translated, that means he did not think the greed of the CEO's would lead to the killing of the Golden Goose.

Poor Alan lived in an Ayn Rand fantasy world and the Wealthy 1% Ruling Class including Reagan, Clinton and Bush took advantage to enriched the Wealthy at the expense of the Middle and Working Classes and the Poor.

If you want more of Greenspan and Ayn Rand, support another Clinton.

[SidDithers]

1. No...nt

Sid

[rhett o rick]

17. I hope not. Maybe the Clintons have learned their lesson.

Probably not, we most likely would see Geithner, Summers, and Rubins. The banksters love them. Their handling of the greatest ripoff in history (call bank crisis of 2008) made the banks very, very wealthy.

[MariaThinks]

2. what an incredible bogus stretch. Trying to tie Clinton to Rand.

its a parallel universe somewhere.

isn't greenspan old and shriveled? Shit, maybe they'll bring back Reagan.

[rhett o rick]

13. Alan Greenspans physical appearance has nothing to do with the reverence that the Clinton's

held him to.

First let's look at what Greenspan thought about Bill Clinton:

"MR. GREENSPAN: I’m sure he doesn’t like that joke, but if you look at his record compared to what I think appropriate policy ought to be, he’s for free trade, he’s for globalization, he was for welfare reform, fiscal restraint and—true enough, he’s not a Republican. I’m sorry, President Clinton, I didn’t mean to say that. But I must say, I had to follow an awful lot of your particular guidelines and found them very compatible with my own."

Greenspan calling Clinton a Republican was a complement because, as Greenspan said, "I’m sorry, President Clinton, I didn’t mean to say that. But I must say, I had to follow an awful lot of your particular guidelines and found them very compatible with my own." He found that Pres Clinton's economic policies were "compatible with my own."

And Clinton re Greenspan:

"WASHINGTON — President Clinton on Thursday entrusted the election-year economy, and perhaps his own political fate, to Alan Greenspan, a conservative Republican, by nominating him for a third, four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board."

"Clinton praised Greenspan for his global perspective, alluding to support for the administration's Mexican bailout package last year. And he hailed him for maneuvering the U.S. economy into "sustained economic growth" now in its fifth year."
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-02-23/news/9602230274_1_monetary-policy-financial-markets-economy

Of course the "sustained economic growth" was the tech bubble that burst in 2000. Thanks Alan.

So I guess we can say that they saw eye to eye on the economy.

So who influenced Greenspan? Ayn Rand did. This is what Greenspan said:

"Ayn Rand became a stabilizing force in my life. It hadn't taken long for us to have a meeting of the minds -- mostly my mind meeting hers -- and in the fifties and early sixties I became a regular at the weekly gatherings at her apartment. She was a wholly original thinker, sharply analytical, strong-willed, highly principled, and very insistent on rationality as the highest value. In that regard, our values were congruent -- we agreed on the importance of mathematics and intellectual rigor."
http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/turbulence.html

One could say he is a disciple.

Elizabeth Warren isn't a fan of Greenspan, here is her input:

"Warren takes Greenspan to task for encouraging Americans short on cash to borrow against their homes. “That’s really scary financial advice for someone to be giving American families,” Warren said. “And what frightens me most is millions of American families have taken that advice.”"
http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/05/clips-elizabeth-warren-takes-on-hillary-clinton-and-alan-greenspan/

Unlike Warren (boy are they unlike) Hillary Clinton admires Mr. Greenspan as Krugman points out:

"OK, this is pretty dumb. Hillary Clinton wants a high-level commission to analyze ways to resolve the mortgage crisis — including Alan Greenspan.
Yes, I know people still listen when Greenspan speaks — and John McCain once joked about taking Greenspan’s advice even if he’s dead. But for those in the know, AG is a key villain in the whole affair."

https://newrepublic.com/article/40851/krugman-hillarys-greenspan-love

So would you welcome a place in a HRC cabinet for Greenspan? Remember his wife has always treated Hillary with kid gloves when interviewing her.

[hrmjustin]

3. Desperate times call for desperate ops.

[firebrand80]

4. Yes. Lewinsky too. nt

[tonyt53]

5. How about this line from the GOP - "If you want your taxes raised, vote for Bernie".

It worked for Reagan against Mondale, and it would not be a lie. Under Bernie's proposals, the taxes of everyone, including those least able to pay more, would go up significantly. To say "but they would receive the most benefit though" indicates a clear lacking of how people living in poverty are getting by. Any tax like that is regressive, just like a GOP proposed national sales tax or a flat income tax.

[MariaThinks]

14. that would get us slaughtered in the general election.

[merrily]

28. oh, please. That is not why Reagan defeated Mondale.

Also, Bernie reduces net expenditures, despite a tax increase.

If I ever read the whole truth on DU about Bernie--or almost anything--I might faint.

As it is, the crap is so predictable, I just laugh.

[Exilednight]

6. Bill liked Greenspan. Hillary did say she would put Bill in charge of the

Economy.

He can't run the Fed again, but Bill may use him as an advisor.

[rhett o rick]

21. The wealthy 1% love Greenspan/Rand because their philosophy promoted

unregulated capitalism and the excuse to run roughshod over the financial lives of the lower classes.

[stevenleser]

7. Sure, even if he dies between now and her inauguration. She has the ability to resurrect the dead!

Bwahahahahaha

[Algernon Moncrieff]

8. Janet Louise Yellen

Janet Louise Yellen is an American economist. She is the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, previously serving as Vice Chair from 2010 to 2014. Previously, she was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton; and business professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. (Wikipedia)

IIRC, another of Bill's economic advisors (at least for part of the administration) was Laura Tyson, who also was a professor of economics at Cal.

I think Hillary sticks with Yellen.

[tonyt53]

26. Smart bet.

[puffy socks]

9. Greenspan had the guts to admit he was wrong on allowing the free markets to correct.

"almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.:"


The markets are not a collection of CEOs.
There are billions of people who invest in US markets especially in the mid 90s when internet trading for individuals was introduced,

The people we shouldn't have as leaders are people who cannot admit they are wrong. People who cannot see the whole picture. That means no Bernie!

Ayn Rand is so far from the Dems its a disgusting baseless smear . Typical.

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. Alan Greenspan, born March 6, 1926, is 90 years old.

So, no, we won't see him.

I suspect that we will see a remarkable continuation between Obama's economic team and Clinton's.

[MariaThinks]

15. you're forgetting about #berniemath. Anything is possible. You only need to twist enough.

and wait for all the complaints that Hillary supporters are being mean and sore winners at about 6:00 pm tomorrow night.

[Agnosticsherbet]

16. I am too old to play competitive twister.

[MariaThinks]

25. Bernie Isn't.

[Agnosticsherbet]

31. Well Bless his little heart.

[jamese777]

11. Janet Yellen has a four year term

as Fed Chair and her first term isn't up until 2018. By then Allan Greenspan will be 92 years old.
Bill Clinton appointed Janet Yellen to be Chair of his Council of Economic Advisors in 1997.

[BernieforPres2016]

12. How modern "capitalism" works, unbeknownst to idiot ideologues like Alan Greenspan

This is the system Hillary Clinton stands for.

Pharmaceuticals and Wall Street:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/the-valeant-meltdown-and-wall-streets-major-drug-problem

<One of Valeant’s biggest investors, hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman, is trying to salvage both the multi-billion-dollar investment his fund, Pershing Square, made in the company and—with Pershing Square down 18 percent so far this year after a 19 percent loss last year in part due to Valeant—his own reputation. Ackman is far from alone. The investors in Valeant were once viewed as a Who’s Who of the smartest guys on Wall Street. The company’s fall is wrecking both their careers and their legacies. “It is as much an indictment of Wall Street as it is of Mike Pearson,” says a pharmaceutical-industry C.E.O. An irascible Californian named Andrew Left, who runs Citron, a research firm, published a report that asked whether Valeant was “the pharmaceutical Enron.”

Valeant was the pure expression of the view that companies are there to make money for shareholders, every other consideration be damned. It raises fundamental questions about the functioning of our health-care system, the nature of modern markets, and the slippery slope of ethical rationalizations. “It’s the dark side of capitalism,” says one prominent investor.>

Debt collectors (and the bankers who sell to them), from John Oliver:

[rhett o rick]

19. Great post. Thanks.

[itsrobert]

18. And Johnny Carson,

Michael Jackson, and Urkel.

Good gawd.

[FSogol]

20. Sure, they'll put his brain in a US Robotics Exoskeleton and he'll

run the Fed for the next 175 years! And they would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for.....

[Dem2]

22. No.

[ancianita]

23. Good question. If the hubz has a say we'll probably get a Greenspan surrogate.

[Andy823]

24. Do you always see the negative in things?

Do you ever look on the bright side instead of the doom an gloom? Do you think you would like this country if Trump were the president? Even Bernie said Hillary was 100 times better than trump on her worse day.

[rhett o rick]

30. I volunteer at a foodbank and work with the homeless. I have friends and family that either

lost their home or been looking for work for some time. I see this country blindly allowing the Rich and Wealth to control our government and they have brought us to the edge of disaster if it's not already too late. What happened to Greece can happen here. When should we stand and fight back? Fight for the 2.5 million homeless children?

[Jack Bone]

27. the way Hillary screwed over Andrea Mitchell...not happening. nt

[onecaliberal]

29. It will be some other wall street hack. That's her orders.

[Nye Bevan]

32. In retrospect, he undeniably kept interest rates too low for too long, encouraging the bubble.

Having said that, there would have been howls of protest if he had raised interest rates and caused stock and house prices to drop. The financial crisis might have been averted but nobody would realize how bad things might have been and not many people would have thanked him.

[rhett o rick]

34. The quotes in the OP indicate that he believed in the integrity of the unregulated capitalism.

He read one too many of his idol's books. He was shocked by the crash. Think about that. He was surprised and shocked. Those of us that don't worship capitalism were not shocked and understand the bubble and burst system he embraced. This bubble and burst system find the Wealthy 1% making out like the bandits they are. People lose homes, savings, jobs, and retirement plans, while the Wealthy gain more and more. We need to end this bubble and burst but can't as long as the Wealthy 1% control our government. The lower classes will not survive another bank heist (called banking crisis) to the tune of $12 trillion. When it happens again, and it will, I can see the reluctant loss of SS.

[Nye Bevan]

35. What do you think of Janet Yellen's approach to interest rates? (nt)

[CobaltBlue]

33. He never left.

A good of number of Alan Greenspans have been here since the 1970s.

[longship]

36. Well, maybe she could get him through the first term if he were embalmed ahead of time.

That might help, one would suppose, to promote his calcified and utterly failed economic policies.

However, I don't think Hillary Clinton is so stupid to do that. But if she did, it would be like a remake of Dawn of the Dead, only not staged in a shopping mall.