Excellent points…..Cons always claim they want less Government involvement in the market until their campaign contributors are about to go belly up or their friends/family businesses are in deep trouble.

How about some NO BID CONTRACTS to go along with that retarded FREE MARKET?

Secondly…why cant this guy get on mainstream news more often?

Greenspan’s philosophy is obviously hypocritical in that it’s a contradiction. Letting the market do what it wants, and then bailing it out when it fails. But, on the other hand, it fits in perfectly with the conservative movement’s idea of privatization of government in general. Instead of either private risks and private profits, or public risks and public profits, we get PIVATE PROFITS and PUBLIC RISKS.

After thirty years of this nonsense, with private corporations looting the public coffers, I vote we do it the OTHER way for 30 years just to balance things out. PRIVATE RISKS and PUBLIC PROFITS.

Federal Reserve isn’t a government. It’s a private bank. Recall, when Greenie was offered a “knighhood,” [not permitted under the US constitution for US government officials, unless Congress says, “OK”], the retort was, “The Knighthood for Greenie is OK. He’s not a government employee.”

So big homeowners — who took on debt, hoping to repay that debt by selling their homes — got pinched. Laugh at them. Some of them may be your neighbors. If they aren’t bailed out, maybe they’ll be living on your lawn.

What was so striking about that book [Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence], was that half of it is a screed against the need for government regulation—you know, free markets are self-regulating—government doesn’t need to mess with free markets. They’ll correct themselves. And the other half of it is Greenspan’s memoir about all of the times he used the Federal Reserve to bail out failed bets by free markets. Now, how can you have it both ways?

In a nutshell there it is ..

“Let the Free Market Rule .. But Bail Us Out & Subsidize Us & Make It Illegal NOT To Purchase Our Product & .. & .. & ..”

In the words of the most excellent Jim Knustler,

“But there is no doubt that the American public has enjoyed an artificially high standard of living in relation to the value of what we actually produce — fried chicken, hair extensions, and the Flaver Flav Show — so the conclusion is pretty self-evident.”

Mike@1 is right about cons, but not free-marketers. Even Greenspan said on TDS that the US isn’t a free market. So his concept was to work with the control system that was in place, and to do so as lightly as possible. I personally think he failed at that.

But I think it’s time to acknowledge that the US economy is not a free market, and that conservatives only use that term as a marketing gimmick. True capitalism has been killed off by pseudo-socialism. The down-sides of both systems are present, while the benefits of either struggle to see light.

Maybe Zombie Capitalism would be a good term to use?

Deregulation of industry and financial institutions is the most liberal thing a government can do. Republicans are conservative, my aching ass.

Spot on! He’s totally right - corporations unfairly lobby the government to bend the market to their whims… they get legislation passed to outlaw things that are less profitable, to force consumers to buy their products, and to stop competition. The market is a bitch, though - regardless of how much control they exert, the citizen still votes with their dollars and drives deserving companies to bankruptcy. The fed then bails them out - i’m sure Greenspan’s buddies get a nice little bonus for it, too. Lots of money going back and forth from the taxpayer’s pocket and none of it for us…

The Rich don’t want a Fair Market.. because they would be no profits involved.

So they do as they wish and when they are in trouble they ask for help.

The American people need to take back their government.

Guys like this exist only because of MSM.

Revolution. Sign me up.

Number 3 is right!!! The Federal Reserve is not part of the government. It is a privately owned banking institutuion. I still can’t get my head around the fact that our Congress is afforded the right to print money (interest-free) via the Constitution and yet it give this same right away to an institution that prints the money, and in turn, loans it to the government, who then must repay the loaned money with interest. What a great scam!!! How can I get a SWEET deal like that?

Gersom at 11

Don’t know what you know, but know you’re right.

Just look at him! Robert Kuttner? A pinko commie.

Republicans run on the idea that government doesn’t work and then they prove it when they get elected.

The ideological battle over “government regulation of business” is vestigial at this point. It comes from an era when we were trying to choose between free market capitalism and planned economic communism.

“Regulation” to the Greenspans of the world (and you don’t need to get too far into Atlas Shrugged to get this one) is tantamount to nationalization of industry.

But we’re past that now. No one is really arguing that free markets are a bad thing. The argument is that free markets are not free because of abusive, monopolistic and sometimes downright stupid behavior.

The idea that markets are “self-regulating” is an unsubstantiated fantasy. It works in the narrow example always given (ie if you don’t provide good products, you won’t make a profit), but only if markets are generally trusted. That trust comes from reliable regulation.

There was a time when S&Ls were highly trusted, VERY conservative financial institutions. Once they were freed up to “self-regulate,” well, any S&L’s in YOUR neighborhood today?

“Deregulation” did well for itself as a meme, attaching to anti-communism. But it’s really anti-capitalism at this point.

Remember: drying up and blowing away in the wind like so much dust is one form of “self-regulation.” Actually, it’s the only form.

The ship orchestra kept playing as the Titanic sank, didn’t they? They were just as powerless to repair the breached hull as is CBS and the Federal Reserve.

Hillary Signals Free Pass for Bush

did nbc cover the story about andrea mitchell taking $50k and free jet rides from pnc at the time they were acquiring the crooked, cia front called riggs bank? her hubby approved of the sale which seems like a conflict of interest. no, nbc wouldn’t be covering that story.

Free Documentaries on Google Video that will attempt to explain the Federal Reserve System for you:

Zeitgeist: Part III 47 minutes.

Fiat Empire - 59 minutes

Ron Paul said the same things of Alan Greenspan et al.

http://www.chemicalluancy.blogspot.com

I don’t know why Greenspan wasn’t called out big time on this….During his 60 Minutes interview with Steve Krofft, Greenspan said he favored the Bush tax cut because he thought we had enough money in the surplus to cut taxes and fund the war and do anything else we wanted to. Krofft gave him a “HUH?” look and said what about politicians who wanted to use the money for education, social programs, etc. to which Greenspan replied, I thought we had enough for all of that.
Greenspan strikes me as someone who is so intellectual on theory, that he is a complete idiot when it comes to the way the world really works.
Agree with another poster, why isn’t Kuttner covered more? Greenspan is the epitome of intellectual Inconsistency.
My other thought when I watched that interview was, Cheney’s got the goods on him, otherwise he wouldn’t be saying something so ridiculous.

Easy Al Greenspans Legacy

http://www.iht.com/articles/20.....php?page=2

A major factor in contributing to the sub-prime fiasco was that these loans were bundled into “mortgage-backed securities” which were then given the highest debt rating by the rating companies. These securities were then sold to investors, freeing the original lenders to make more sub-prime loans.

Now, maybe a loan where the borrower pays only interest on the loan while he/she figures out how to make repayments of principal are not worthy of the grade AAA rating these securities got. I think there is a bit more to this matter than an “intellectual inconsistency” here. Looks to me like potential fraud. Had the securities created by these bundled loans been correctly rated, there would have been no secondary market to unload these loans on, and further sub-prime loans would have been curtailed. The real-estate bubble would not have been created, only to burst.

This is a prime example of white collar crime, where the crime is supposed to be too convoluted and complicated for people to realize that a crime may have been committed. But essentially, what I think may have happened is that the amount of loans made was caused by these loans being bundled into securities which were mis-classified by the ratings companies in order to sell these securities at a higher price in order to make the sub-prime loans profitable for the original lenders.

Of course, the tax payer is expected to be the national health insurer for those who got financially ill due to this mis-classification by the ratings companies.

NoBuddy @ 22:

A major factor in contributing to the sub-prime fiasco was that these loans were bundled into “mortgage-backed securities” which were then given the highest debt rating by the rating companies. These securities were then sold to investors, freeing the original lenders to make more sub-prime loans.

Now, maybe a loan where the borrower pays only interest on the loan while he/she figures out how to make repayments of principal are not worthy of the grade AAA rating these securities got. I think there is a bit more to this matter than an “intellectual inconsistency” here. Looks to me like potential fraud. Had the securities created by these bundled loans been correctly rated, there would have been no secondary market to unload these loans on, and further sub-prime loans would have been curtailed. The real-estate bubble would not have been created, only to burst.

This is a prime example of white collar crime, where the crime is supposed to be too convoluted and complicated for people to realize that a crime may have been committed. But essentially, what I think may have happened is that the amount of loans made was caused by these loans being bundled into securities which were mis-classified by the ratings companies in order to sell these securities at a higher price in order to make the sub-prime loans profitable for the original lenders.

Of course, the tax payer is expected to be the national health insurer for those who got financially ill due to this mis-classification by the ratings companies.

And all the lawyers in the world aren’t going to be able to untangle this mess.

how about the inconsitency of GWOT economics
“US general predicts record poppy haul”
–perhaps we should have used the Afghani poppies to pay for the war on terror instead of the Iraqi oil….

We tried no government regulation at all, and that didn’t work.
We tried some government regulation but no bail outs, and that worked.
We are currently trying no government regulation, but huge government bailouts and that doesn’t work.

So that answer that the Paulbots and Republicans propose? Back to no government regulation, that we already know doesn’t work. Morons. Why is it they ALWAYS insist on breaking eggs, then saying “no, no! if we just scoop up the dirt and hair covered yolk, shove it back in the shell, and glue it all together, it will be good as new!”

Are they really not smart enough to consider making rules like: “don’t break the egg in the first place”?

If you agree with this man, you don’t know economics. We need totally free markets, unlike what we have here in America; which is a mixed economy.

Get the government out of the market. The market WILL assume responsibility instead of always having a net to fall on in hard times.

Ofc, being that crooksandliars is a lib site, you guys will almost always support government intervention. I’m almost through with this site…

The Fed of which Greenspan was an integral part for many years knew that free markets were to be left free. However, under Reagan, the Working Group On Financial Markets was established after the stock market crash of 1987. Otherwise known as the Plunge Protection Team, it was originally their job to try on an infrequent basis to support the markets ONLY during times of crisis. Today, the PPT meddles in the affairs of all markets even gold and silver as commodities, and the game has gotten out of hand.
Markets aren’t down 150 points an entire trading day and then in the last fifteen minuets of trading shoot up to over +200 points. These are unnatural moves that point to clear manipulation. These are not free markets.
At 12:01 on New Year’s day something called the Basil II accord took effect world wide. What it means in a nutshell, is that all banking transactions must be transparent, on the books and taxable. This is a major step in the right direction. The media around the world being owned and operated by interests to keep the spin machine going rather than reporting the truth is criminal, as anyone today can tell you from first hand experience, the inflation is rampant rather than the benign inflation figure of 2% that is hawked by the Federal Reserve and todays market action was a direct consequence when the market is not manipulated. It dropped like a rock, and real money ( gold ) took off like a rocket.
Sorry to pound the table on this, but until the Federal Reserve is done away with; until the punch bowl of limitless money is taken away from we the addicts that would rather live beyond our means, nothing will change and will only get worse until the entire ponzi scam collapses in on itself. It’s that simple. You can’t live beyond the income you make in your paycheck, and no government can live beyond its receivable tax revenue. To print money freely and in turn making it increasingly worthless will take our society the all way others have gone such as Rome. To its final end.

swarmofkillermonkeys @ 25:

We tried no government regulation at all, and that didn’t work.
We tried some government regulation but no bail outs, and that worked.
We are currently trying no government regulation, but huge government bailouts and that doesn’t work.
blockquote>

You sir, don’t know American history. While it is true that America is one of the most free markets in the world, we’ve NEVER had a free market like Hong Kong has enjoyed since the 60’s. I wish people didn’t spout off so much disinformation about such a serious issue as our economy.

srry this is my comment, not his:
You sir, don’t know American history. While it is true that America is one of the most free markets in the world, we’ve NEVER had a free market like Hong Kong has enjoyed since the 60’s. I wish people didn’t spout off so much disinformation about such a serious issue as our economy.

ok never is too absolute a term. We have had a free market but it was much before the Fed came into existence in the early 20th century.

Greenspan is an apologist for Wall Street.
Now he whines that we should not judge him.

He’s a hypocrite, a liar and a thief.

The Federal Reserve “loans” the US money that it could print for itself interest free.

Americans are not taught the rudiments of monetary policy.
If the American public understood they’d be run out of town, tarred and feathered.

…

I’ve posted this before, but this history lesson bears repeating.

….a significant chunk of Federal spending is so far “Off Balance Sheet” that it would make the CFO of Enron blush. Its not just the war in Iraq funded via special legislation; The other major expense is FEMA. This “Emergency” spending on an ad hoc basis makes the deficit appear smaller than it really is.

What this really means, folks, is that the real defense budget, like Consumer Price Inflation [CPI] is MUCH LARGER than official statistics would have us believe.

But why would anyone want to deceive us?

To answer this question, I direct your attention to none other than rep. Ron Paul (R), currently running for the nomination to be the Republican Party’s candidate for President of the United States of America (from a speech delivered in the House of Representatives on July 9, 2002):

“It is now commonplace and politically correct to blame what is referred to as the excesses of capitalism for the economic problems we face, and especially for the Wall Street fraud that dominates the business news. Politicians are having a field day with demagoguing the issue while, of course, failing to address the fraud and deceit found in the budgetary shenanigans of the federal government – for which they are directly responsible. Instead, it gives the Keynesian crowd that run the show a chance to attack free markets and ignore the issue of sound money.

So, just who are these ‘Keynesians’ who seem to be such ardent proponents of unsound money, anyway?

Well, let’s just say that they are not capitalists. As Dr. Paul points out,

“Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!”

So, if we’re to believe Dr. Paul, it seems that ‘core’ to where we find ourselves economically speaking is unbridled credit creation [fiat currency] and fiat money’s chief advocate – Central Banking.

But doesn’t Central Banking and Capitalism go hand-in-hand?

The answer is a resounding no!!

To wrap one’s mind around this fact, they need look no further than the words and thought of Edward Mandell House, chief advisor of President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1921:

House was a Marxist whose goal was to socialize the Untied States. In 1912, House wrote the book “Philip Dru: Administrator” in which he stated that he was working for “Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx.” In this book, House laid out a plan for the conquest of America, telling how both the Democratic and Republican Parties would be controlled, and be used as instruments in the creation of a socialistic government. And he asked for the establishment of a state-controlled central bank, which were both proposed in “The Communist Manifesto”. And it was in 1913, during the very first year of the House-dominated Wilson Administration, that both of these proposals became law. The Federal Reserve Act was passed, which brought into power a private central bank to create the money of the United States, taking this power away from the united States Congress. And the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the graduated income tax as proposed by Karl Marx, was also ratified.

You see folks, Central Banking is, and always has been, a key tenet of Communism — not Capitalism.

This is reality.

Wow. I read the article by Robert Kuttner. What silliness.

To begin at the end, there’s this:

“The eventual recovery will require a repudiation of free-market economics, as bold as the New Deal.”

Except the New Deal wasn’t a repudiation of the free market. The New Deal was a rather onerous response to problems created by the Federal Reserve in the 1920’s.

There’s this:

“In effect, the private financial system was printing money, operating beyond regulatory constraints”

The banks “operating beyond regulatory constraints” sure sounds like Newspeak to me. Either the banks were breaking the law in some form or they weren’t. I don’t see how the presence of regulatory constraints can be considered anywhere near a free market that needs to be repudiated though.

And then:

“Last week, an alarmed Fed made an unprecedented offer to exchange ordinary bank collateral for cash — taking the first step towards nationalizing bank debts.”

Again, I don’t see how the bailing out of banks by the government, in the form of the Federal Reserve, can be considered by anyone to be something that even resembles a free market.

Please see below to understand why Robert Kuttner is wrong about the greatness of the New Deal:

http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/Woods2/11.mp3
http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/Woods2/12.mp3

Predatory capitalism is no different than predatory communism.

flubb @ 29:

srry this is my comment, not his:
You sir, don’t know American history. While it is true that America is one of the most free markets in the world, we’ve NEVER had a free market like Hong Kong has enjoyed since the 60’s. I wish people didn’t spout off so much disinformation about such a serious issue as our economy.

Talk about needing a history lesson! That’s from a dumbed down textbook for 11th graders even!

So your shining example is 1960 Hong Kong? WTF? Do you know what life was like there (I mean not just for the uber wealthy)?

Wow. I wonder why Ron Paul doesn’t put that on his ads, “Hi, I’m Ron Paul, and I’d like to take America back to the times of 1960 Hong Hong where pollution was rampant, the poor rotted to death in dank, smokey alleyways, and getting ANYTHING done required 4 family connections, 100 pound of paperwork, and monetary bribes at each step of an amount determined by how gracious that particular mobster was feeling that day. All hail the Robber Barons!”

Should work great. Good luck!

Amazing how much time I have spent explaining this to Capital-L Libertarians - the government will regulate or it will bail out.

Alan Greenspan is a fraud. greenspan wrote a long time ago, that the FED monetary policy of the 1920’s lead into The Great Depression. What did he do when he was in charge of teh FED? The same policy- in spades.

Greenspan was warned in 2000 by another FED member about loosened lending standards. He was uninterested in doing anything about it. Why? Because Greenspan was going to engineer a housing bubble, to replace the stock bubble. Greenspan dropped rates to 1%, then told home buyers in 2003, that they should get adjustable rate mortgages. At 1%, FED rates had nowhere to go but up.

in 2005, Greenspan praised no down, interest only, no doc, negatively amortized lending programs, as a means for those who otherwise could not afford to buy a house, to own one. Now he says it was an accident waiting to happen. F R A U D.

Now Greenspan blames anything but himself, for a housing bubble.

Alan Greenspan should be prosecuted for Central Banking fraud.

swarmofkillermonkeys @ 25:

We tried no government regulation at all, and that didn’t work.
We tried some government regulation but no bail outs, and that worked.
We are currently trying no government regulation, but huge government bailouts and that doesn’t work.

So that answer that the Paulbots and Republicans propose? Back to no government regulation, that we already know doesn’t work. Morons. Why is it they ALWAYS insist on breaking eggs, then saying “no, no! if we just scoop up the dirt and hair covered yolk, shove it back in the shell, and glue it all together, it will be good as new!”

Are they really not smart enough to consider making rules like: “don’t break the egg in the first place”?

I read somewhere that one of the definitions of lunacy was to do the same thing over and over but expecting every time a different outcome. In that respect Paultards and Libertarians in general do fit the definition of lunatics.

Ron Paul is a dangerous idiot, as are the swarm of inept people who are proposing with a straight face that the only “cure” is to return to the gold standard. Talk about not knowing what they are talking about. As a professor of mine used to say: “Be wary of any advice regarding brain surgery from a moron that just read the Cliff’s notes on Horse medicine.”

Bison @ 16:

Hillary Signals Free Pass for B