Not content to have enabled the devastation of the American economy, Alan Greenspan takes to the WSJ to caution us all about excessive regulations on the financial sector:
However, the appropriate policy response is not to bridle financial intermediation with heavy regulation. That would stifle important advances in finance that enhance standards of living. Remember, prior to the crisis, the U.S. economy exhibited an impressive degree of productivity advance. To achieve that with a modest level of combined domestic and borrowed foreign savings (our current account deficit) was a measure of our financial system’s precrisis success. The solutions for the financial-market failures revealed by the crisis are higher capital requirements and a wider prosecution of fraud — not increased micromanagement by government entities.
Why is this man not in hiding in Argentina or Uraguay? Why is he allowed to speak in public?
And for the record- I want so much regulation of the financial sector that if someone at Goldman Sachs wants to take a piss, he has to get a hall pass from Dennis Kucinich. They don’t like it, they can move to Iceland and see how they feel about bankers.
sgwhiteinfla
Because we have to look forward not backward dontcha know!
bago
Why are they remaking Tron with Daft Punk?
SpotWeld
..it seems he’s kinda lost his edge, doesn’t it?
kid bitzer
"an impressive degree of productivity advance"
when, in fact, what we are learning through this entire sad affair is that the u.s. produced exactly nothing, all during the bush years.
there was all this appearance, all this make believe, all this paper profit. we made money (not me, but some of us) by buying each other’s houses, with money we borrowed from the chinese. that’s krugman’s formulation, and he’s right.
no real productivity increases underneath it. kind of like a bubble.
you’re right, al–we’d better not do anything that might prevent a new bubble!
Laura W
I feel the more pertinent question here is: "Why didn’t Mrs. Greenspan spring for a family plan twofer when she had her last face lift?"
That would be news I could use.
And change I could believe in.
Ming
sounds of cheering
The Grand Panjandrum
@bago:
Because MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice did a show in Utah? (If that isn’t a sign of the coming Apocalypse, I don’t know what is.)
Buckethead
Remember, prior to the crisis, the U.S. economy exhibited an impressive degree of productivity advance. To achieve that with a modest level of combined domestic and borrowed foreign savings (our current account deficit) was a measure of our financial system’s precrisis success.
Wowee. I guess Greenspan didn’t get the memo, but "our financial system’s precrisis success" was an illusion, based on made-up assets and lies. It happened because the financial system was (is) staffed by criminals, incompetents, and the criminally incompetent! And it was made possible by lax regulation! F him.
Lee from NC
@sgwhiteinfla:
lol. “"We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, TWIRLING towards freedom!" – President Kang”
Bill H
The guy jumped off the top of a seventy story building. As he passed the twentieth floor on the way down he was delighted with the amount of speed he was gaining.
Josh Hueco
Dear Alan…A shitty economic philosophy is a shitty economic philosophy, regardless of how many times you banged the skag that invented it. Thx…The World.
The Moar You Know
Somebody’s got to say it, might as well be me:
Fuck Alan Greenspan. Fuck him and Ayn Rand. Fuck his broken-record repeating of "the appropriate policy response is not to bridle financial intermediation with heavy regulation". Yeah, we got it, you senile old fuck. You were 100% wrong when you started peddling this horseshit under Reagan and you’re still 100% wrong today. We haven’t built anything in thirty fucking years and the economy is in the shitter. WHAT A SURPRISE.
America needs to yank its collective head out of its ass and get on the case here before we end up squatting in our own shit, worshipping the last working light bulb.
Fuck Alan Greenspan.
Svensker
You can’t spoof these guys.
Anybody feel like coming to NJ to shoot me? I’m in need of it.
C Nelson Reilly
Please stop enhancing my standard of living with those important advances in finance. I’ve benefitted enough, thank you.
schrodinger's cat
He can also take the people who said we would be greeted with flowers in Iraq with him.
Lee from NC
@Svensker:
Yeah, it’s pretty hard to mock that.
"In my precancerous health state, cigarettes weren’t doing me any harm."
"In my pre-foreclosure state, my house payments were not a big concern."
Sigh.
djork
Golf clap
John Cole
@Svensker: That had me laughing out loud when I read it- “Precrisis success? WTF?”
That is like saying “Hey- it was ok to eat nothing but white castle and cheese cake and mayonnaise milkshakes, because up until the heart attack at age 17, everything was going great!”
Moron.
Robin G.
@kid bitzer: Exactly. The Wall Street people — hell, most of the financial people in the country — still don’t seem to get it: it’s not that the money was lost. It’s that the money never existed to begin with. For the last ten years, we’ve essentially been counterfeiting bills and passing them all over the country. Now all the counterfeit has been yanked out of circulation, and the amount of real money left is almost non-existent.
maya
Lay off Alan. Don;t you recognize the advanced stages of Reaganaire’s Disease when you see it?
Instead of mocking him someone should be revving a helicopter engine whenever he opens his mouth.
binzinerator
Fix’t for accuracy.
Xenos
Higher capital requirements for derivatives insurance? Since no government really regulates these, how are reserve requirements to be promulgated and enforced without new regulations and regulatory bodies? Spitzer’s prosecutions of corporate fraud was considered to be far worse than micromanagement by the corporate elites he went after.
It is all a lot of distinctions without differences. From the objectivist twit who gave political and intellectual cover to the biggest pack of elitist thieves since the latter days of the Roman Empire.
Leelee for Obama
@The Moar You Know:
So very Full of Win! Oddly, he reminds me of my estranged and very strange mate, who asked me how I could ask him to leave after almost twenty years. My reply was that if I had murdered him back then, I’d be getting out of prision, so ….
I think foreign countries are not far enough away. Think he’s aware the Shuttle is launching tonight?
mellowjohn
say don’t you remember
when they called me al?
yeah, it was al all the time.
say don’t you remember?
i was your pal.
and someday i hope alan greenspan and the rest of the randians are out on street corners asking passers-by what the last line of that song is.
kay
It’s sort of amusing. How indignant financial types are. Thirty years of being treated like oracles and god-like figures will do that to people. They were all puffed up and their huge egos are bruised. It is unfair to blame them for the collapse of the financial sector. They simply had nothing to do with any of that, they were just doing their JOBS, and the dogma is sound. End of story. How do you argue with that?
Sloegin
Higher capital requirements should be a given, as well as heavy restriction or elimination of multiple derivative categories. (If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc.)
His ‘prosecution of fraud’ statement tacked on to a anti-regulation rant is a complete non-sequitor. You can’t prosecute a wall street looter if there isn’t a law or regulation in place for what he did.
norbizness
Tr2n isn’t a remake, it’s a sequel. Jeff Bridges went in a few months ago for digitization.
As for Greenspan, we should respect our really really elders. He’s lived through twelve recessions, eight panics, and five years of McKinleynomics, after all.
gbear
all of this ‘Alan’ bashing is making me nervous this morning. I have no choice but to blame my parents.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
For "really really elders", read "Elder Gods". On the dreaded day when they rise, the lucky will be eaten first.
TaosJohn
I’ll bet an accurate poll on this would show overwhelming support. Hell, it’s the best thing I’ve heard in decades.
Cat Lady
@kay:
Mr. Mitchell and the rest of them are like parent murderers asking for sympathy because they’re orphans. They can all bite me. Fuck them all in half. Go long in pitchforks and torches.
Brick Oven Bill
I think Andrea Mitchell should have to be identified as Andrea Greenspan. They are one and this two last names thing is deceptive to the casual observer.
Comrade Darkness
Can we have Elliot Spitzer back again. Please? Our one glimmer of hope for hammering the treasonous financiers hell bent on destroying everything.
I’ll start a fund to offset the cost of his hookers. Anything. Please.
feebog
Good Grief. I read the whole OpEd. Most of it is a specious CYA argument that nothing he did while Fed Chairman caused the housing crash. It was the world wide Global economy don’tchaknow. Mortgage rates became "uncoupled" from the Fed rates, blah, blah, blah.
As for his argument that we don’t need to worry our fuzzy little heads about too much new regulation…
All the "fuck yous" in the thread above say it better than I ever could.
Leelee for Obama
Jay in Oregon
And we ensure banks and financial institutions adhere to these "higher capital requirements" how? OVERSIGHT! (Or as Greenspan would put it, "increased micromanagement by government entities".)
I’m with John; why is anyone giving this asshole air time still?
kay
@Cat Lady:
I agree. It is fun to watch, though. The masters of finance aren’t used to being widely disdained, or even questioned. That kind of societal sanction was formerly reserved for auto workers and teachers. The slackers! Oh, and black-robed judges. We hate them, unless they’re conservatives, and then they’re brilliant scholars.
d0n Camillo
The world needs more advice from Alan Greenspan the way a punch bowl needs a giant floating turd.
itsbenj
nice post! burrrrn.
joe from Lowell
Oh, certainly. Why, without those innovative, dynamic, advanced mortgage products the investment banks cranked out, I might still have to go to work five days a week, which would significantly erode my quality of life.
Billy K (D-TX)
Yet another rugged individual submits to Socialism. I’m so sickened by all this, I may consider going Galt.
Cat Lady
@kay:
Fun may be not quite the word, being recently out of work. I find it… "interesting". For me, the fun part will start when they’re out of work too. I had fun reading about Addington and AbuG being out of work, though. That’s fun!
Barry
Greenspan: "Remember, prior to the crisis, the U.S. economy exhibited an impressive degree of productivity advance. "
Adding onto others’ comments, because I gotta – we’re now figuring out how many years (or decades) of that was merely BS so that the financial elites could look the sh*t out of us.
Frankly, with each passing day I come to the conclusion that there are no good right-wing economists. Bring out Madam Guillotine, and do the lot of them, as soon as possible.
Dennis-SGMM
p.a.
Who burns in the lower circle of hell, Greenspin or any SOB who sticks a microphone in front of him?
Chris Andersen
Greenspan:
Everything went wonderfully, until it didn’t.
The operation was a success. The patient died.
bago
@norbizness: It’s also retro french house duo Daft Punk working on a movie from the 80’s. A byte off the old block?
Evinfuilt
Please, this has to be Peak-Wingnut right there. You can’t get more important than Greenspan when talking about how our situation came to this state… and then he talks about the success, which was all an illusion.
Daily Show will have a blast with this, they can read the comments here and fill out 10 minutes of perfectly valid comparisons.
Anoniminous
Al is evidence for the proposition: When John Galters threaten to john galt — encourage them.
Barry
And that’s just a warm-up for the Big Wall Street Head Pyramid.
KDP
Sheesh! I had a modicum of respect for him last October when he said this.
I work in quality management. Two key elements of an effective quality system are a Corrective/Preventive Action program to investigate and identify root cause, then take action to prevent a problem, and an internal audit program within which the standard is that you don’t audit work in which you are involved.
Clearly, the financial markets applied neither of these practices to their operations.
Dennis-SGMM
No point in harping on the fact that wages for the middle class and below stagnated during those "impressive productivity gains." I’d pay fifty bucks for a pay-per-view of Greenspan set up in a dunk tank with the recently unemployed throwing the baseballs.
John PM
As I just commented in the "Looting" post, after the current mess, I now view the phrase "innovation in financial markets" as a synonym for "ponzi scheme."
Kevin
I’m pretty sure my countries banks (Canada) are some of the only ones in the world that aren’t hurting right now. They all had massive profits last quarter (smaller then the year before, but still healthy). So maybe everyone should take a look at our regulations. Higher capital requirements are one. But i’m sure there are more that would be helpful.
And can one of these people tell us exactly what good has come out of the great financial innovations? Seems to me that all they’ve done is turned a real asset (say, a mortgage), and managed to attach trillions of make believe money to it. I don’t know anyone whose benefitted, apart from hedge fund managers, CEO’s and traders.
I have one idea, and one idea alone. Stop giving executives stock based compensation. When they can be compensated insane amounts of their stock value rises, they have incentive to go for fake profits and create all this fake crap. So they pump up fake earnings for a few years, get out before it burns, and then let someone else repeat the process.
Rick Taylor
I am gob-smacked. And Greenspan is one of the more reasonable nuts; he at least admitted he’d been wrong in trusting CEO’s to act responsibly in the long term.
This reminds me of those conservatives who’ve wrung their hands and worried that we’d take away the wrong lesson from Iraq and that we might be more hesitant to start a war in the future.
Just to add, the last eight years have been pathetic as far as job growth is concerned. Sure a few people made out like rajahs, accumulating fortunes, but overall the standard of living hasn’t changed much, and now we’re all about to pay for the princely living of the few of these past years.
Billy K (D-TX)
@Dennis-SGMM:
What would that dunk tank be filled with?
dmsilev
"Before it collapsed, our house of cards was built impressively tall".
-dms
Dennis-SGMM
"But, your honor, sending my client to prison for armed robbery will stifle innovation in personal cash balance adjustments through the use of firearms."
Rick Taylor
Also, reading the rest of the article, I have no idea whether the fed could have prevented the housing bubble, but Greenspan completely overlooks his own culpability in keeping it going. He encouraged the mortgages that have ruined us; back in 2004 in a speech he said, "the traditional fixed-rate mortgage may be an expensive method of financing a home". Even I knew then that there was a housing bubble and that getting a variable rate mortgage was a risky proposition in the long term.
Jay in Oregon
Holy shit.
I’m reading that Vanity Fair article about how Iceland destroyed its economy, and I think it can be summed up in one quote:
bayville
Commrade Cole-
Glad to see you are fluent in Greenspan Garblesse. I re-read his column multiple times and am dizzy.
But I think, his point is that making money "cheap" to borrow is still solid monetary policy and had no connection with the global economic turmoil of today.
This further illustrates the person involved in overseeing the international banking system during most of our adult life was INSANE!
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Are you locked into variable rate mortgages in the States? Up here, we have the option to switch to a fixed rate any time. My sister’s renewed for her last three year term on a variable rate, which is currently at about 3-4%.
Dennis-SGMM
@Rick Taylor:
The Fed could have raised interest rates. That was off the table because it would have had the lamentable effect of revealing that America was borrowing its way to prosperity
valdivia
Sorry for being the nitpicker but the country is spelled Uruguay. And why send all these financial idiots down to my corner of the world?
Rick Taylor
The only thing that’s astonishing is he’s saying this now, in the middle of a meltdown where we’re pouring trillions into shoring up the banks. But his attitude is all too human. When times are good, we’re all too happy to enjoy the benefits of a good Ponzi scheme. We’re all in the same boat. We’re looting the irreplaceable resources of the planet and it looks really good now. When the crunch comes, will someone someone stand up and say don’t forget we had some really great decades using up everything we could without planning for humanity’s long term welfare?
Rick Taylor
@Billy K (D-TX):
I vote for sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads.
Chris Johnson
FILLING the dunk tank would cost money. Just make sure the trap-door is high up enough :)
CMcC
You quote Greenspan: "That would stifle important advances in finance that enhance standards of living."
WTF? And just how are all those wonderful "advances in finance" — uh, how can I put this — "enhance(ing) standards of living" now?
Is Alan Greenspan actually still alive?
TenguPhule
Because nobody yet has the courage to do what must be done.
But as networth declines by double digits, the probability of this increases geometrically.
kay
@Cat Lady:
I’m sorry you’re unemployed. That’s why the whining about taxes is hard for me to take. I understand not wanting to pay more taxes. Is it a good time to whine about that, though? Considering so many people won’t have taxable income of any kind? What about the clients or customers of the people whining about a slightly higher tax rate? The dentists and such. Is it smart to complain about how wildly successful you are when you’re dependent on the fee for service scheme, and a lot of your potential customers have no income at all?
Dennis-SGMM
@Billy K (D-TX):
My preference is water swarming with Candiru.
Svensker
@Billy K (D-TX):
Ooooh, so much win. Ha ha ha.
Libby Spencer
OT: Forgive me for momentarily hijacking the thread but I understand Instapundit launched a freep of this poll yesterday that grades Obama’s first 50 days in office. Just for the fun of it, why don’t we freep them back? (Note: this is NOT a blogwhore.)
Zoogz
Dennis-SGMM @52
Would it be sporting to try to figure out ways to just bean Greenspan with the baseballs rather than caring if he hit the tank?
More analogies:
Remember, prior to the bungee rope breaking, the bungee jump exhibited an impressive degree of enjoyment.
The solutions for the airplane flight failure are higher numbers of washed-up war pilots like Ted Striker buying airplane tickets, not an increase of micromanagement of fish entrees for food service.
wasabi gasp
DonKnottzilla vs. Abacus
binzinerator
@kay:
I’d find it so much more amusing if we could kick them all in the junk with steel toed boots.
dr. bloor
Screw the tank. Tie him into the seat and throw rocks at his head instead.
Shygetz
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: Under most variable rate mortgages here in the States, you have to refinance–you can’t automatically convert. Which means you have to pay tons of fees and get a reappraisal, which if your house value and/or credit went down (or if the banks got tighter with their loans) means your refi would be denied. Part of what some people are pushing is a "free" refinance to a fixed rate for borrowers in trouble.
Ricky Bobby
NONONONONO!!
DON’T TOUCH IT!! DON’T TOUCH THE MARKET, IT SELF CORRECTS YOU DUMMIES! It’s a gift from the Almighty that is perfect in its perfectness. Regulation by us plebes can only destroy that which God has given us in his infinite wisdom.
Just don’t mind the victory gardens full of turnips in the meantimes and the riot police to staunch the food riots.
Unemployment = meh.
/snark
Comrade Dread
I’m starting to think that the failure of communism wasn’t shooting all of the upper class.
It was failing to then turn the guns on the new self-appointed leaders.
Indylib
OT TPM has some winners this afternoon.
Vitter has a "Do you know who I am??!!!" moment at Dulles.
And Norm Coleman’s campaign websight posted donors credit card info in January.
Kevin
Ah, our mortgages are a little better then. I have a 5 year variable, bought the place last spring. At the time, fixed was about 5.5, variable was 4.5. I have the option to lock it at any time with no fees at 5.6. That is slightly above the 5.5, but the amount I’m saving in interest now should more then offset the .1 difference if i ever have to lock it in.
A Mom Anon
@Billy K (D-TX):
I vote for sharks. Frickin’ Laser Beams optional.
ksmiami
I prefer dung tank to dunk tank for the estimable MR. Greenspan
JosieJ
@Chris Johnson:
Oh, I’m sure there are any number of people who’d be happy to take a whiz in there for the cause. Starting with me.
PattyP
@ Dennis-SGGM
I’d pay 50 bucks for a pay-per-view of him having to get a bathroom pass from Dennis Kucinich.
Dennis-SGMM
The airport employee was quoted as saying, "He can’t fool me: the real Senator Vitter would have been wearing a diaper."
Jager
A former mortgage banker I met at a party in Orange County a couple of years ago. Is now out of business, his office is locked up, he has skipped on 100’s of thousands of dollars owed to advertising media and some of the "little people" like printers and web designers was spotted the other night at the Balboa Beach Club in Newport Beach, valet parking his fucking Bentley GT. Brazen prick!
Brick Oven Bill
I have just read Mr. Greenspan’s article and it makes me angry.
"As I noted on this page in December 2007, the presumptive cause of the world-wide decline in long-term rates was the tectonic shift in the early 1990s by much of the developing world from heavy emphasis on central planning to increasingly dynamic, export-led market competition."
No it isn’t. The world-wide decline in long-term rates was a consequence of your judgment Alan. Those were your decisions.
"Global market competition and integration in goods, services and finance have brought unprecedented gains in material well being."
False again. The global market has concentrated wealth among your friends by lowering the cost of labor and abolishing tariffs. The wealth of the median American family has been declining as a direct result of people like you. You are full of crap Alan.
The Federal Reserve needs to be abolished. The Federal Reserve is run by men, who are selected by the banking interests, who then regulate the banks. Geithner made the decision to let Lehman Brothers fail the week that McCain took the lead in the 2008 Presidential race, precipitating the market collapse. This is suspicious.
Dennis-SGMM
@Jager:
Now that’s what I call being productive.
Fulcanelli
When you see utter horseshit like Greenspan’s comments, and then stuff like:
is it any surprise the world economy is tanking? Expect law suits flying around like monkeys in little suits once the implications of this sink in. If his career isn’t toast after this, there is no hope. Hell, if he isn’t in prison there’s no hope. Stuff what money you have left in your mattress.
The term "Hedge Fund Manager" will soon aquire the same cachet as pedophile, mother-stabbers and father-rapers (right there on the group "W" bench!)
At least common bank robbers just took the cash in the fucking safe, these cocksuckers are rendering everybody’s money that wasn’t in the safe next to worthless on top of cleaning it out.
And as far as the running "what’s in the dunk tank" question here today? My vote is a mix of DMSO and LSD. Then we watch them go crazy in 15 seconds.
Billy K (D-TX)
@dr. bloor:
Ah! A good olde-fashioned stoning! I do love The Classics.
John S.
Holy fucking shit. I agree with BOB!
kay
@binzinerator:
It’s hard to believe how the mighty have fallen. Greenspan was almost mythical. He could calm the fears of vulture capitalists with just the sound of his voice. We were instructed that he was the smartest man in the world, and for so long- virtually my entire adult life. Both Hillary and McCain were singing his praises right up until the crash. McCain was going to buy his book! As a quick tutorial! Remember that?
justinslot
Daft Punk scoring the Tron 2 soundtrack is possibly Disney’s greatest decision since the creation of Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.
Dennis-SGMM
@Fulcanelli:
Cramer: "Of course I fucked my mom. Her room was right down the hall so who would know?"
Fulcanelli
@Brick Oven Bill:
Comments like that Bill will cause the sky above your house to grow dark with black helicopters.
BombIranForChrist
Dear Alan Greenspan:
The "advances" we made "prior to the crisis" CAUSED the crisis, you crazy person.
Stop talking forever.
Thx
kay
@Fulcanelli:
Today’s the day the lawyer who brought the last frivolous claim against Obama-Biden has to file his response. Bill wrote that Berg was "building a strong case".
That poor lawyer, who is actually admitted before that federal court, and was duped by Berg into appearing, has to explain why an interpleader action was a "good faith argument for the extension of current law", or he has to pony up and pay Obama and Biden’s legal bills. I’m dying to read his justification. I can’t imagine what he’s going to write. Let’s see if the birthers, Berg and the dentist, cover the bills for him. Dope.
wolfetone
@Svensker:
Only if you’ll do the honor of shooting me at the same time!
ChrisB
I understand a broken hip can be very debilitating to the elderly. So I vote for nothing, nothing in the dunk tank. And a very high chair.
Also, kudos to mellowjohn @24 for the perfect "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" refrain.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
That was the title of Bonnie and Clydes’s unpublished memoir from their banking days.
geg6
I say we go Andrew Jackson on these asshats.
Boom, no more Federal Reserve. Boom, get the people of flyoverland to understand exactly what criminal fucks have been running our economy the last 30 years. Boom, make everyone on Wall Street and the Village do their own version of the Trail of Tears.
We round ’em all up in with their new Dear Leader Chuck in their new utopia of the Confereration of Texas Blowhards and the Criminally Insane and then give ’em the Seminole treatment when they realize that, in going all in for Texas as the Galtian paradise, they’ve bought another pig in a poke.
Brick Oven Bill
Fulcanelli; I am at Panera Bread, as I just got kicked out of the house. There was a Crown Victoria with a spotlight that was tailgating me down my road, making me wonder. Then I executed a maneuver in traffic, in order to check out the driver of the Crown Victoria, I was pleased with my maneuver.
He was just kind of gazing blankly over the steering wheel, and had poor posture. Perhaps he was one of the Universal Volunteers, but he did not seem interested in me. And there have been no more teams of three serious looking officers, two of whom in uniform, watching houses in my neighborhood.
So far, so good.
Indylib
Irony alert!
Sean Hannity’s has health insurance from AFTRA – the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists – a union.
wolfetone
@kay:
If there’s any sort of justice or karma in this world, they’ll be indigent soon rather than indignant…
Comrade Stuck
@Brick Oven Bill:
This is your brain on Crack.
Brachiator
I note that the Great and Wise, All Powerful Greenspan does not mention what appropriate regulations might be, nor has any Republican stepped forward to push for the criminal prosecution of any banker.
I think these clowns must have graduated from the Mitt Romney School of Pretend Tough-Guy Posturing. They are all Magna Cum Douchebags
Clay Eatter
Remember, prior to the crisis, the U.S. economy exhibited an impressive degree of productivity advance.
If you ignore everything that’s happened since September, and lots of things he did while he was head, then he sounds sensible. And as we’ve all learned, regulation is bad, government only gets in the way, and we are becoming a socialist country.
I can’t wait for the next bubble. Bring on the bubbles.
4tehlulz
I, for one, think that this will be a vital good in the near future:
Stock up now!
John S.
Even when BOB starts off on somewhat solid footing, he manages to find a way to take the next train to Crazy Town…
FWIW, I think the Federal Reserve system is a giant fucking scam that makes our banking industry far too subject to market manipulation. There is now solid proof of that.
Scott de B.
And prior to hitting the iceberg, the Titanic exhibited an impressive degree of flotation.
jibeaux
Are there squirrels at Panera?
liberal
@Brachiator:
Yes, though this issue is relatively bipartisan. So it’s going to be harder to prevent looting, make sure the bad guys get regulated, etc.
I could be wrong, but my impression is that the FIRE sector isn’t as pro-Rethuglican as others. Witness Corzine, Rubin, etc.
The Moar You Know
@4tehlulz: That’s fucked up. You are a sick fuck.
I think I’ll get the five pound spool. I wouldn’t want to run out.
Cat Lady
@TenguPhule:
Also.
passerby
@Sloegin:
The solutions for the financial-market failures revealed by the crisis are higher capital requirements and a wider prosecution of fraud—not increased micromanagement by government entities.
This. I wish I could be this polite.
Greenspan’s statement here is total hogwash and this narrative is how wallstreeters keep themselves in power. The loopholes that allow for fraud [I think the fraud is systemic.] can ONLY be closed by government regulation–call it micro management if you want Alan–and if allowed to continue would be equal to nothing, hence, hogwash.
It’s like the Kramers and Santellies, et al, who spew complete and utter bullshit in order to prop up a fraudulent system where they benefit and we get taken for suckers.
So add my voice to those who say "Fuck Alan Greenspan" and I’d add "Fuck them all".
Bob In Pacifica
"a hall pass from Dennis Kucinich."
A great line, John.
jonas
Oh I know. Can you imagine what our standard of living would be like by now without subprime, triple-A rated CDOs and credit default swaps? I shudder to think….
flounder
I think that OSHA should be alarmed that someone might be in danger of taking anyone that runs a bank that took TARP money seriously. Thus, much like they make me wear steel toed boots at work, these jokers should be forced to wear clown shoes.
Fulcanelli
The only real difference in the game played by the Wall Street Titans of Finance(tm) and the game played by hustlers on the street with the box and the three shells is the fact that the guys on the street own the little peas underneath the walnut shells. None whatsoever.
Rope futures look good I hear, as does lead.
Svensker
@Brick Oven Bill:
Dear BOB, I seriously love you.
canuckistani
Piranhas. Piranhas with bees in their mouths.
Fulcanelli
Notice there’s no Fed in the UK.
Roq
He doesn’t sound like an oracle anymore, eh? Now he just sounds like a crazy person that uses a obfuscating patina of finance lingo to hide the now obvious, overly ideological and wrong-headed ideas of the past.
Ming
why does bankers rhyme with wankers?
calling all toasters
@Billy K (D-TX):
Starving retirees who lost everything in the market.
David Hunt
That’s a good metaphor, but I think this one is even more apt in some ways:
Prior to hitting the iceberg, the Titanic had a surplus of life boats.
ImJohnGalt
Argentina has had quite enough of the Chicago School of Economics, thank you very much.
Seriously, these guys should just go into hiding and never again speak on the public stage. They have NO shame.
Church Lady
BOB, remember our exchange the other night? It’s time to start drinking again. A slight buzz seems to act as a reality check to you. Drink up buddy.
John PM
@David Hunt: #128
For the win!
P.S. – From this post, it sounds like a lot more people should have voted for Ron Paul
JenJen
Fraud prosecution?
Oh jeebus, is the financial sector taking out the ol’ "VOTE FRAUD! VOTE FRAUD!" red herring for a test drive?
JenJen
@Laura W: For the record, it’s not like the plastic surgery is working on Andrea.
wagonjak
#32…I’ve been whining about Andrea Greenspan Mitchell’s access to public opinion with her MSNBC show every weekday morning, and her frequent appearances on Matthew’s segments and other news talk shows…
THIS IS A HUGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST, and she should be fired immediately…there’s no way she can avoid talking about the financial meltdown that her hubby had a huge role in, and I’ve heard her myself ask leading questions with a decidedly Republican slant to them…
Go away Andrea!…I’m sure you and Alan can live comfortably on the spoils you’ve banked away during the Bush criminal years…
Mickey
The Wall Street Journal is on a role. Yesterday, Bush’s Ministry of Wartime Policy chief, John Yoo, had an op-ed piece explaining why we needed his Memos to save us from sure destruction. Today, Alan Greenspan [the Financial Wizard who insured the viability of the Derivatives Market by shutting down Brooksley Born] tells us that we shouldn’t micromanage Wall Street. I’m guessing tomorrow’s WSJ op-ed page will host an article by Bernie Madoff about the importance of Hedge Funds in our economic future.
And, by the way, "I want so much regulation of the financial sector that if someone at Goldman Sachs wants to take a piss, he has to get a hall pass from Dennis Kucinich." was the best line of the season!
Laura W
@Church Lady:
One of the many reasons I continue to like and trust you.
;-)
Elie
Ah, there is surely some enjoyment in seeing the growing anxiety and distress in the old Guard…
In the big Musical Chairs of our economic and political power system, they have been and are being either pushed out of their chairs or being made to stand up and damn, the music is going and Lord knows who is going to be in those chairs when it stops! And they are not running the music either! Well just shit!
I am so loving it! Such mourning, such anger, such wistfullness for days gone by when folks like Greenspan got to say what correct reality was.
That is rapidly retreating in his rear view mirror. It must be hard to see your whole life’s raison d’etre — your whole sense of your effectualness be repudiated on the end of your life when you know there will be no time to make amends or re-do anything.
If he had any honor, he would be looking for a gun or a good steady rope and a nearby crossbeam. There’s still time though. Its all actually quite operatic…
binzinerator
@Brick Oven Bill:
How do you know they’ve gone? Maybe they got better at avoiding detection. The best place to surveil houses in a neighborhood would be from within one of those houses. I’d keep an eye on your neighbor’s windows, is what I’d do. Look for reflections from binoculars, scopes, long lenses or other optical equipment. Are any of your neighbors away? Who retrieves the newspaper in the mornings? And can you be certain the neighbor you’re waving to who comes out for that newspaper isn’t in fact cooperating with the government so they can watch you without you suspecting?
You do know that those black helicopters have turbofan exhaust dampers, don’t you? They can muffle the engine noise down to almost nothing for short durations. They can’t be heard if they’re more than 100ft away, and that 100 feet can be straight up.
Infrared and heat imaging technology can now discern people sleeping in their beds at night. The resolution is good enough to tell if you are sleeping with some one or not — and in what positions — all in real time.
It might not be a bad idea to afix a layer or even a half-dozen layers of mass-loaded vinyl to the ceilings of the rooms in your house. It is ostensibly for sound reduction, but at 2 lbs per sq. ft the density approaches sheet lead and would no doubt work the same way in thwarting prying eyes.
A layer on the windows would be prudent, too.
Running a vacuum cleaner constantly in at least the principal rooms of hte house will interfere with surveillance radio waves and sound pickup. Even parabolic mikes can’t get a good lock.
You never can be too shielded from being watched, and don’t be lulled in to false security. Take these common sense precautions and you will be safe.
Brian J
I’m not bothered by the idea that the financial system need not have necessarily heavy regulation, but instead smart regulation. If at the end of the day, Obama and his team figure that a smaller list of broader rules combined with actual enforcement is what’s best, and the suggestions received approval from people in the know, then I’d be fine with that. The problem is, the people who are making this reasonable point are the same ones who act like any sort of regulation is ridiculous.
Nevertheless, I’m pretty confident President Obama will strike down the right path in regards to financial regulation. The Goldilocks approach doesn’t always work, but here, it’s probably best.
bob h
Remember, prior to the crisis, the U.S. economy exhibited an impressive degree of productivity advance.
Presumably this had more to do with advances in technology than financial wizardry.
Greenspan’s era coincided with a boom fuelled by technology and globalization, and low energy prices. Inflation was held in check by all these. He merely went along for the ride, and got credit for it.