Alan Greenspan at the Feds: A Disaster for America

“Alan Greenspan had a ‘calming’ influence...on Wall Street!” - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), a wannabe President of the U.S.

How did Alan Greenspan ever get appointed to the chair of the prestigious Federal Reserve? This is the same guy who told a federal regulator, in 1984, not to worry about the Saving & Loan Industry. This was just before “15 of the 17 thrifts,” he said were sound, went under. That fiasco cost the taxpayers a whopping “ billion in losses.” Now, Greenspan’s shaky tenure for nineteen years at the Feds of “cutting interest rates and printing money” has brought the nation’s financial system close to collapse and many in the working class to their knees. In his book, “Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve,” William A. Fleckenstein, reveals how Greenspan has created one huge mess after another in the finance, real estate and stock markets. In his scathing indictment, the author sets the record straight, too, about Greenspan’s over inflated reputation as an economic guru.

Fleckenstein’s first-rate book, written with Frederick Sheehan, couldn’t be more timely, especially coming on the heels of Charles R. Morris’ insightful tome, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers and the Great Credit Crash.” The latter’s book focused on a Wall St.-related credit bubble, “of writedowns and defaults,” that could exceed “ trillion.” (1) It’s fair to say that the amiable dunce, the late President Ronald Reagan, contributed to today’s financial crisis by turning the country over to the Vulture Capitalists to exploit. It was the union-busting Reagan, who ushered in the “Age of Deregulation,” thanks to that false economic prophet, Milton Friedman. The Bush-Cheney Gang, however, may have supplied the final nail in the coffin of our economy by launching the illegal and immoral Iraq War. Its price tag is now put at a staggering trillion and counting. (2)

Digging into the transcripts of the Feds’ meetings and Greenspan’s testimony before various Congressional committees, Fleckenstein builds a compelling case against the foxy ex-Feds’ czar. He shows how during Greenspan’s reign his “devastating mistakes” resulted in colossal failures, like: “The Stock Market Crash of 1987; the Savings and Loan Crisis; the Collapse of Long Term Capital Management; the Tech Bubble of 2000; the Feared Y2K Disaster; and the Credit Bubble and Real Estate Crisis of 2007.” At press time, Goldman-Sachs is predicting global credit losses coming from the current turmoil of about “.2 trillion,” with Wall St. accounting for “40 percent of the losses.” (3)

When Bear Stearns, Wall St.’s fifth largest investment firm, recently went down for the count, folks wondered: “How could that be?” Well, one of my favorite financial pundits, Jay Hancock, provided a concise answer. He wrote: “There are uncountable culprits and dupes in the extraordinary chain of events that finished Bear Stearns...But at its heart the crisis is ‘A FAILURE OF REGULATION.’ If not for the Federal Reserve’s and Bush administration’s refusal to stop crazy mortgage lending, former Bear boss James E. Cayne would still be chewing cigars at his Manhattan office, counting his money and complaining about regulators. And the country wouldn’t be headed toward what might be the worst recession in decades.” Hancock added that Greenspan did a “great job of describing the danger...of subprime and exotic mortgages...but he did ‘little to stop’ the poison loans,’’ even though the Congress had explicitly instructed the Feds [as far back as 1994] to do just that. (4)

Getting back to Fleckenstein’s book. He recalls a time when we actually had honest politicians in the Congress, who genuinely represented the interests of the people. One of them was the late, great Sen. William Proxmire (D-WI). When Greenspan was nominated to be boss of the Feds by President Reagan, back in 1987, a public hearing was held. Sen. Proxmire dug into Greenspan’s “forecasting record,” when he served as the President of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He labeled his CEA record “as dismal!” He said that Greenspan’s predictions on future interests rates “were wrong by the largest margin of those made during the period under review...Hopefully, when you [Greenspan] get to the Federal Reserve Board, everything will come up roses. YOU CAN’T ALWAYS BE WRONG.” Tragically, Sen. Proxmire’s gut reaction to Greenspan’s supposed expertise rang with the truth. If only Congress would have then rejected his nomination, maybe we could have avoided this present mess.

The crafty Greenspan headed the Feds from 1987 to 2006. After leaving office, he penned a self-serving book. It’s entitled, “The Age of Turbulence.” In it, he made this shocking statement: “It is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what ‘everyone’ knows: the Iraq War is largely about oil.” After reading his tract, I wrote: “Greenspan consciously chose to remain silent about what he now reveals was one of the true reasons for the Iraq War--oil! Why didn’t he resign his office and come clean with the American people that a massive fraud, a war based on serial lies [remember those WMD?] was being perpetrated on them by the Bush-Cheney Gang?” (5) I felt then and I feel now that Greenspan should be forced to testify, under oath before a Federal Grand Jury, and/or the House Judiciary Committee, about his amazing disclosure. The American people are entitled to the full truth about why we really got into the Iraq War. And, the liars, who took us there, should be severely punished. President Bush and VP Dick Cheney, first! (6)

Who benefitted from Greenspan’s disastrous policies at the Feds? Fleckenstein puts it this way: “Did he actually set out to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the rich, while the country itself essentially burned the furniture for heat? After all, his bubbles made the sponsors of those bubbles ‘fabulously wealthy,’ ultimately to the detriment of the average person of the United States as a whole. Or was he simply not up to the task?”

Author Fleckenstein concludes: “Down through financial history, markets have intermittently gone to excess. Prices go to the sky and then fall through the floor...But the bubbles in U.S. stocks and real estate didn’t just happen. To a degree that the American public had not yet fully realized, these costly distortions were instigated and financed by the Federal Reserve--ALAN GREENSPAN’S FEDERAL RESERVE!”

Notes:

1. http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article16683

2. To see the baleful effects of the policies of the globalist schemers, via their so-called “Free Trade” ploys, on the U.S. economy, go here: http://www.economyincrisis.org/

3. http://www.reuters.com/article/bankingFinancial/idUSN2539260820080326 and http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/roots-credit-crisis-found-feds/story.aspx?guid=%7B7920B361-26CD-4241-9797-72E182F13FE6%7D and

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=arRP1iTbLQ94&refer=home

4. “Bear Stearns Fiasco is Regulatory Failure,” Jay Hancock, March 18, 2008, Baltimore Sun; and, See also:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080327/D8VM0BPO1.html

5. http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/15914/index.php

6. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/

©2008, William Hughes, All Rights Reserved.

William Hughes is a video and print journalist. His videos can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=liamh2.

Email Contact: liamhughes@comcast.net.