For the past seven million hours, conservative aggregateur Matt Drudge has been blaring the main headline, “OBAMA MOVES TOWARD ‘SWEDISH MODEL’ FOR BANKS,” replete with a sacrilege photo of the profane Swedish flag. The “Swedish Model” is “code” for the evil thing the Swedish government did in the early 1990s after a major real estate and financial bubble: nationalized the biggest insolvent banks, fixed them, and put them back on the market, the end. In other words, it is basically Red Marxism and Islam combined. And now, free-market fappers Lindsey Graham, his “live-in” John McCain, and even Alan Greenspan — who caused the entire crisis, for fun — are voicing their support for Swedish Communist Revolution! MORE »

Here’s heavy-petting Saxby Chambliss defending himself, on the Fox News, against a Jim Martin ad that quotes Chambliss saying he doesn’t even know what the term “recession” means. We’ll cut him some slack on that, because a new person is declaring a new version of the word everyday. But what’s notable is that Chambliss defends his comment by saying that he was quoting Alan Greenspan, people. He appears still to think that this is the ’90s/early ’00s, when name-dropping Greenspan worked as a blanket defense against criticism or, more importantly, an excuse not to learn anything about economics. This caused several problems. [YouTube]

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. MORE »

This weekend, as our frozen credit markets and subprime space aliens took investment bank Bear Stearns — the fifth largest in the country — down, down, down into the ground, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan wrote an article that saved the American economy. Hurrah! Regarding the moral hazard of huge companies taking inappropriate risks because the Fed will rescue their broke asses when it hits the fan (”they’re too big to fall!”), kindly old hobbit-sage Alan Greenspan offers these soothing words: who knew!? MORE »

While Dipshit McGoo Thompson thinks the economy can be saved by calling it “boring,” respectable old man John McCain has an even more WALNUTS! plan to fix it: make Alan Greenspan do it. MORE »

Some little hipster clarinet player from NYU is claiming the Iraq invasion and occupation was all about securing oil supplies for America. Oh and what is that sticking out of Jazzbo Al’s tattered raincoat? A worn paperback of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” which he actually first read when she was writing it, when he was screwing some gal in Rand’s “inner circle” and writing angry letters to the New York Times about how “parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.” That’s right, we’re talking about former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan! MORE »

* Army General in charge of Walter Reed is fired for not supporting the troops. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* Federal prosecutors fired for not supporting Republicans come back like night-zombies to haunt the Justice Department. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* The second great “political showdown/media circus” of Selma, AL will be this weekend, Revs. Obama and Clinton presiding. [WP]
* Yes, Condoleezza Rice’s new “counselor” is a neo-con. Yes, he also has a mustache. [WP]
* Federal buildings are just like your new condo, have “workout facilities, firing ranges.” [USAT]
* International markets have testicles, and they are still firmly in Alan Greenspan’s kung-fu grip. [NYT]

Bold facers display their blithe indifference to the common man in this week’s Wonk’d as Alan Greenspan laughs uproariously at the unsuspecting pawns in Borat, Bill Clinton ignores dead bodies in the street, and fey Karl Rove won’t even give a guy a courtesy nod. James Baker still keeps it real by hanging at bars - but only if they’re really classy. At least there’s always Marion Barry, who’s hip to the hot spots, and down with the cool styles. All these celebrity drinking habits, plus Grover Norquist reduced to buying last season’s irregular suits off the rack, after the jump.

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This just in: the Federal Reserve Board just raised the federal funds rate to 5.25 percent. This is the 17th consecutive rate hike, and the rate now stands at its highest level in more than five years.

Meanwhile, while Fed chair Ben Bernanke has fun raising interest rates, his predecessor Alan Greenspan has to suffer through jury duty. The full story, after the jump.

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When he took over as Fed chair, Ben Bernanke said he hoped to provide clearer and more transparent guidance to financial markets than his predecessor, Alan Greenspan. We haven’t been impressed thus far. And now, this story: MORE »

A correction from the Washington Post: MORE »