Oh Really?
Greenspan in a recent interview:
"So everybody in retrospect now knows that that boom was developing under the markets for quite a period of time, but nobody knew it. In 2004, there was just no credible information on that."
Oh really, what do you call the facts presented in this 2004 article then? One would have thought that Greenspan would be able to recognice the similarities of those facts and his own description from 1966 about what happened in the 1920s.
"So everybody in retrospect now knows that that boom was developing under the markets for quite a period of time, but nobody knew it. In 2004, there was just no credible information on that."
Oh really, what do you call the facts presented in this 2004 article then? One would have thought that Greenspan would be able to recognice the similarities of those facts and his own description from 1966 about what happened in the 1920s.
posted by stefankarlsson at 5:05 PM
2 Comments:
While Greenspan deserves much of the blame, I think the average American consumer is very much at fault as well.
Greenspan can give interviews all he wants. I doubt he ever will salvage his sunken reputation. Stefan, I did notice from the link you provided on the interview that Greenspan at least seemed somewhat honest about having had easy money and tolerating loose lending to please his political bosses and others:
“If we tried to suppress the expansion of the subprime market, do you think that would have gone over very well with the Congress?” Mr. Greenspan said. “When it looked as though we were dealing with a major increase in home ownership, which is of unquestioned value to this society — would we have been able to do that? I doubt it.”
“We could have basically clamped down on the American economy, generated a 10 percent unemployment rate,” he said. “And I will guarantee we would not have had a housing boom, a stock market boom or indeed a particularly good economy either.”
In a way, he is right. His hands were tied. He gave the politicians and their constituents the boom they wanted, enjoyed, and would have demanded if he stepped in their way.
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