Wonkette
So here are three major factors that contributed to our country’s world’s current financial misfortunes: prolonged periods of historically low interest rates (even negative real interest rates), the complete deregulation of such derivatives as credit default swaps, and encouragement from Washington that the inflated housing boom was nothing to worry about. It’s rare that you can pin so many large factors on one person, but, well, former Fed chief Alan Greenspan set the low interest rates, led the pressure on Congress to keep derivatives markets wholly deregulated, and was the voice from Washington that said everything was fine.
And so today, in Congress, Greenspan testified and admitted that he was “partially” wrong on one or two things. Oh, that Alan! How is his ass not in jail for 500 years? Even more comically, the congressmen holding today’s hearing all took their big swipes at Greenspan, even though they’re just as rotten for doing whatever he told them to do for many years, because they didn’t understand finance and probably didn’t want to make a “fuss.”
This is what happens when people masturbate to Ayn Rand too furiously: blindness. Not just an urban legend!
Greenspan shocked at credit system breakdown [Reuters]
Yeah but he gets all of those “fringe benefits” from Andrea. Imagine those two nekkid.
Well, gee, Alan, thanks so much for this candor. It is very helpful now, after the world has ended.
Hi, I’m Alan Greenspan and… well.. you know that whole capitalism thing and how awesome I used to say it was? Yeah, well… just forget everything I said up ’till now. Turns out it kinda sucks.
No nookie for you tonight Alan Greenspan, so sayeth Andrea Mitchell. (Since you’ve already screwed the rest of America, you should be good for awhile.)
To the guillotine!
No more freedoms?
That sucking sound you hear is Alan Greenspan.
Imagine Alan’s surprise at discovering that backing loans with worthless collateral may be a partially wrong idea.
make him pick up the tab. he’ll notice that.
No one wanted to make a fuss. The only way to keep the economy chugging along was to allow poor people to pay too much for homes that they couldn’t afford. This allowed the old owners to become wealthy enough to inject more money into the economy. Everyone knew about it but no one wanted to say anything for fear that the Ponzi scheme known as the U.S. economy collapsed.
I call it the circle of life. It ends with the Chinese consuming us with chopsticks after they stir fry us with some hoisin sauce.
I thought nobody could understand a damn thing he said anyway. Also, he seemed to have pretty flexible convictions in that he deeply believed in whatever side his bread was buttered on.
BTW, the best obituary to all this non-sensical libertarian/Objectivest/laissez-faire bullshit is this article in Slate.
And they try to excuse themselves by mangling a metaphor based on what some stupid baseball player did in the World Series: “All of you let the ball go through your legs,” Mr. Yarmuth said, using Mr. Buckner’s mistake as a metaphor. “And you didn’t want to let the ball go through your legs, you didn’t try to let the ball go through your legs, but it got through.” I don’t think I want to think about these guys’ legs.
Meh. I’m still blaming Dick and Ronald for this, Greenspan’s just too boring.
A once in a century sunami? We’re only in the eight year of this century you wrinkled turd!!
Greenspan has now conceded “error” on regulation.
For an “error,” this is too big. An error is when you forget to carry the 1 when you are adding a couple of numbers. Greenspan’s whole life has been lived as a Randroid-free market-blue sky capitalism nut job. That’s not an “error.” That’s insanity.
Serolf Divad: jinx.
Serolf Divad: This one’s good too, I just linked to it, granted it’s the evil New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?hp
Alan shrugged.
Tell my how Ayn Rand would have supported this again?
Greenspan admits, his socialist ways were “partially” responsible for the meltdown. Everyone agrees and elects a bigger socialist.
Ah… America!
SayItWithWookies: Actually, I think you’re right about this. I seem to recall that Wall Street depended more on his facial expressions than actually trying to decipher his econobabble.
Wasn’t this guy who was feted as a “Maestro” like five months ago? Mail all these criticisms back ten years ago when they would’ve mattered!
Maybe Palin’s handlers could have taken Alan clothes shopping before he went to testify? Looks like a retiree in search of a buffet.
“I’m sorry Senator, what did you say? Derivatives? No, I don’t know where they are. Now could you point me to the salad bar, please?”
Phil Gramm is the devil. That is all.
Today’s featured article on Wikipedia is the stock market crash “Panic of 1907″.
So. There.
So let me get this straight. An Ayn Rand disciple is shocked, shocked he tells us to discover that corporate officers acted in their own self-interest rather than the best interests of the shareholders. Fantastic.
InKnockYouUs: Or their balls.
SlouchingTowardsWasilla: I’m shocked that anyone thinks Greenspan is an Ayn Rand disciple in any remotely realistic sense.
Jim Newell: I don’t see it in his archives yet, but our friend Ira Glass’s, “This American Life” aired a compelling first person chronology of the entire train wreck (here in NY, last night). Much less reading, too.
Alan Greenspan also told Congress there were WMD in Iraq.
Gee, the policies you spent two decades advocating for actually helped create and worsen the problem? Thanks Alan, I’m glad you said “My, bad” after the world economy collapsed. Very big of you.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
InKnockYouUs:
I can’t take any more “taint” metaphors in these hearings. Cows were very popular the first day, as in tainted meat the inspectors missed which could lead to the whole line being shut down, which led to the British style destruction of all cows, regardless if they were mad at all. I’m sure once the flames flared, all them cows were mad. There was another taint metaphor today with these three masters of the universe, but fortunately, I can’t remember it.
InKnockYouUs: It’s the wide stances
SelfDeprecatingFed: When he was an Ayn Rand acolyte, he believed that money should be backed by gold. Wrote a book about it. Then, as he might have said, emerging job opportunities conceived operational efficiencies that created flexible and innovative structures in his belief system on many levels.
I Can Has More Bubblez?
Jim Newell: The New Math: the amount of free-range derivatives wandering loose in the world is given in the Times as over a half-a-quadrillion (!) dollars’ “worth”, which makes half-a-quadrillion the new zero, which makes a quadrillion the new… oh shit, my brain just exploded, what a mess, which equals one mess, which equals the world financial system.
rambone: And now I’m craving sushi. Thanks.
Maybe we can raise an army of the newly homeless to take over his house. That seems fair.
I’ve never heard anything out of this whiny incompetent moron except blaming everyone else in the world. His great theories would have worked if only ….
He’s sounds like an unreformed communist.
Market bubbles (Market bubbles)
All the Time (All the Time)
Make me sadz (make me sadz)
Make me sorry (make me sorry)
Market bubbles (Market bubbles)
Make me cold all over
With a feeling that You’re gonna
Hate me till the end of time
So here’s to the golden calf
And here’s to the silver stream
And mostly here’s a toast
To insolvency
So here’s to the bank garrote
I gave you yesterday
To inflict the pain
That will not fade away
SelfDeprecatingFed: That’s right. Objectivism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Paper (securities) backed by risky assets (subprime mortgages) which is insured against loss by paper (credit swaps) issued by companies that are invested the same risky assets is inherently risky.
So that you won’t have to endure further shock, Alan: fire is hot, water is wet, pain hurts, and Clay Aiken is gay.
Let the show trials begin.
Varchar: Win.
This is an interesting historical note because it’s the first time in history any libertarian has admitted fault in any way, shape or form.
When does Matlock come on?
Serolf Divad: Greenspan: The Fed Chairman Who Had No Clothes
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000342.html
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2008/10/greenspan-finds-flaw.html
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2008/09/nouriel-roubini-on-bloomberg.html
How’d you get the turtle to hold the microphone?
I’ve heard Greenspan spends hours at a time reading in the bathtub. Now picture him nekkid and wrinkled as a prune! Made you forget about your 401k, didn’t I?
What the FUCK is he wearing? Is this person paid? Fashizz…
Jamacaine doesn’t know much about the economy, but he’s reading Greenspan’s book, so it will be OK.
What a dick! If I wasn’t slightly buzzed on Vicodin right now I’d find him and kick his sorry ass.
I used to think Andrea Mitchell was ugly, but I just hopped on her Wikipedia page and found out she’s (approximately) older than John McCain, so she’s okay I guess.
Isn’t it pretty rare for Greenspan to admit he made a mistake?
http://www.entertonement.com/collections/5274/Greenspan-Didn%27t-Anticipate-Financial-Crisis
Varchar: WIN
I blame Toohey
Stop pretending slope nose, everybody knows George W. Bush liked older men, cause of his affliction with his homo dad and all, and everybody knows you were tappin that brown eye and he was polishin your knob while Cheney was chocken his chicken. Hell, I know the gap in Condi’s teeth is an aiming tool for the Slomo of the Desert Cock Forever Dollar Double Down Bank Shot Greenspan cum shot. Your lucky, if David Green were alive today, he’d cut your circumcised cock off and give it to Georgie boy to lick. Outside of the Gaza, a tuff Jew is hard to find, however, there are lots of queer Connecticutians masquerading as Texans, with a bobble head tic, and they will gobble your dick with a smile, just show them some interest rates. Hell, he’s an old cow hand, on the Rio Grand, he loved to get George Bush off with his soft left hand, they was two lost souls just a dippin their wicks, who’d ever know they’d be suckin the others dick, yiiippppeeee kiyo kiyea, pass me some more KY. George W. Bush, if you love him, bring a roll of toilet paper….
WoundedVeteran: Wowsy-wow-wow….little bit agro there. I think I lost my enthusiasm for my “Henry Waxman looks like a giant rodent” joke…
After years of being treated like the love child of Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton, this fucktard has the nerve to say, “My bad.”
Tar and feather his ass.
Aurelio: Or an error is like when I open the mail and have one of those really thin envelopes from the bank. The kind that tell you that even with Quicken, your arithmetic sucks.
Scandalabra: I forgot that Walnuts was doing remedial work on his lack of understanding the economy-thingie by reading Dr. Evil’s text book on how to create global depression and a worldwide return to cannabilism. Good luck to us all on that.
If it costs a trillion dollars to make these ridiculous fucks go away forever, it’s cheap at twice the price. I used to want them all to go to prison for daily anal raping until they all died. Now all I want is for them to.just.go.away.
On second thought, watching Tweety urinate on Nancy Pooperheffer was pretty funny.
And now, PRESTO, I raise the investor class from the dead.
I grow old,
I grow old,
I shall wear the bottoms
Of my Dependz rolled.
The Chicago Boys will claim in the future that the problem happened because there was ANY regulation!