Greenspan on Republicans: "They Deserved to Lose"

Alan Greenspan isn't happy with Republicans. He also says the housing boom during his tenure as Chair of the Fed was caused by the end of communism, not Fed policy to keep interest rates low:

Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush And Republicans, by Greg Ip and Emily Steel, WSJ (free): In a withering critique of his fellow Republicans, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says in his memoir that the party ... deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its small-government principles.

In "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," ..., Mr. Greenspan criticizes both congressional Republicans and President George W. Bush for abandoning fiscal discipline. ...

Mr. Greenspan, who calls himself a "lifelong libertarian Republican," writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb "out-of-control" spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush's failure to do so "was a major mistake." Republicans in Congress, he writes, "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."

Many economists say the Fed, by cutting short-term interest rates to 1% in mid-2003 and keeping them there for a year, helped foster a housing bubble that is now bursting. In his book, which was largely written before much of the recent turmoil in credit markets, Mr. Greenspan defends the policy. "We wanted to shut down the possibility of corrosive deflation," he writes. "We were willing to chance that by cutting rates we might foster a bubble, an inflationary boom of some sort, which we would subsequently have to address....It was a decision done right."

(rest of Greenspan's article @ following link)

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/

with the US Housing boom?

Is it that more Russin money was coming into the US?:shrug:

and the subsequent emigration from former communist countries (not russia so much as the satellite states) to the u.s.

though in fact, a ton of immigration into the u.s. has been from non-communist nations such as mexico and india.

immigrants need housing, of course, and bid up the prices.


it's not an argument completely without merit, though it's certainly only one of a number of causes, and it's not clear just how significant it was.

Once an ideologue, always an ideologue. It supplants reality.

since when? :wtf:

:kick:

K/R

:rofl:

...but it has been his monetary concepts which got the country here. His policies financed trillions in leveraged-buy-out loans (LBO) through hedge funds which created the financial bubble machine in all sectors.

No the big banks are searching for ways to unload more than $350 billion of leveraged buy-out (LBO) debt they have incurred in financing private equity deals. Unable to find buyers for this whole pile of crap, the banks have begun parceling it out in small doses, at small discounts to its nominal value.

The Federal Reserve through Ben Bernanki, Greenspan's successor has been pumping new money into the banks that he thinks will allow them to eventually dump those debt problems, but in fact this is already staging hyperinflation and will force tens of millions of homeowners into bankruptcy.

Greenspan created the fundamental conditions which lead to this mess and history will not be kind to that fool.

When real estate started becoming overheated, he should have started gently ratcheting up rates over a period of time to take the boil down. He did the opposite. He TOUTED ARMs when fixed rate mortgages were at an all time historic low! I consider him 100% personally responsible for the real estate bubble.

OK, bad underwiting and unwholesome mortgage designs also had a hand, but he is in the middle of the current problems.

caused so many others to suffer.

Bernanki is another fool, only worse in the now, thanks to the atmosphere Greenspin created.

Argh!

Things are not looking good for the future, all thanks to greed.

Eat the rich.

big dogs in DC & he does not want to lose that for him and his wife. They want to remain in the power LK& social circles and so here he is either in the confession booth or CYA or both.

He forced Clinton to make a choice to secure his blessings -- ramp down Clinton's promised broad middle class tax cuts to focus on deficit reduction. 1992 level deficits. Then he gave Dubya the go-ahead for monstrous tax cuts and even pitched in idiotic noises about the "danger" of paying down the debt too quickly, then didn't say shit while Republicans stuffed the treasury with IOUs for 5 FUCKING YEARS. Now he wants us to know that his friends let him down, that's whut dunnit. Fuck him. Fuck that mumbled-mouthed weasel who suddenly discovered a clear speaking style when he was a leading Cassandra bewailing the doom of Social Security if we didn't open its coffers to Wall Street -- nevermind that he was one of the architects who "saved" Social Security for all time 20 years earlier by raising the payroll tax. A guy who spent the 90s crapping his pants because job figures came too close to full employment for his inflation-phobic liking. All Greenspan has been good for is redirecting every stray lower/middle class dollar/peso/drachma/kopek into upper class pockets.

:applause:

Even now his 'reasoning' rings hollow. Republicans blew it by not controlling spending? I am sure huge spending cuts would have helped the economy - NOT. The deepening slump caused by spending cuts as well as the social misery caused by service cuts would have made Republicans get thumped at the ballot box in 2002 and 2004.

He's the one who kept interest rates low and
served as an economic lackey for Bushinc.

He deserves a special place in the desert.

ah ha

Projection, plain and simple.