Greenspan's Folly

Interesting that indiealltheway does not include Bush and company! Deregulation has been their true religion for eight years! Yes, greed and irresponsible behavior at all levels (credit cards to Wall Street) are part of the problem, but we all need regulation!! No one is so pure that they can go without oversight, and the glorious "Market" does not fix problems!! People simply manipulate the marketplace and others.

what next, we go back and blame the demise of studio 54, had it not closed the fat cats would still be in cocaine/alcohol stupors and debauchery and not had the time or ability to spin out such disaster:!!?? come on, we saw it with the dot com industry, you can't fly high about the stratosphere on air without sometime falling, no matter what your fuel! each person in this country who overused credit cards, mortgages, granted credit, ran large corps into the ground etc, and the government who outsourced our ability to get ahead in life by sending jobs oversees played a part in this. as did a year of over inflated gas and oil prices from the speculators, enough of the blame game, no one is going to jail, but we all risk going to the poorhouse, pull it together folks, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, prepare to get your hands dirty for a while and let's make money the old fashioned way, WORK FOR IT!! pushing paper and speculations is not work, it's gambling, but the casino odds are better. one of Ghandi's seven deadly sins is "wealth without work", let's learn out lesson and show some cohesiveness and chutzpha and fix it, stop being a nation of namby-pamby's. our parents and grandparents fought wars, depressions, etc, and came out with character and a sense of values, we haven't developed either as a result of having it way too good for way too long. i too am angry about what happened, not so much the end result as the decadent attitude that got us there.

Greenspan is to blame BUT he did not write the legislation so he is not FULLY to blame.
His job was to advise and suggest and he did and what he suggested was
1) laxer rules with new LOAN products with Interest Only and 0% down
Greenspan is to BLAME be the American people were the greedy ones to take advantage of the new rules GREENSPAN suggested and the CONGRESS wrote and approved and CLINTON approved.
#1 Greenspan
#2 Congress
#3 Clinton
#4 Barny Frank who loosened the rules even more to allow poor people to BENEFIT from the home pric increases.. Thanks Barney you just let POOR people suffer more than they could have ever imagined.

Read the The Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act enacted by Congress in 1994 before you think you know anything about this issue.

The Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act enacted by Congress in 1994.......THIS IS THE ROOT OF MOST OF OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS...bet most Americans never heard of it before, but we sure as hell have now $800B later.....It proves that Congress acts unilaterally and with impunity

The Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act enacted by Congress in 1994.......THIS IS THE ROOT OF MOST OF OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS...bet most Americans never heard of it before, but we sure as hell have now $800B later.....It proves that Congress acts unilaterally and with impunity

DID WE HAVE A RIGHT TO EXPECT ANYTHING ELSE FROM THIS PRESIDENT? Blame it on Greenspan? My bu**! Bush had a known track record before he took office of having run into the ground every business he had been involved in, this was brought out clearly in the elections of 2000. With him at the helm of our country???s economy, he has managed to do the same: homeowners losing their homes, the dollar in the tank abroad, the insurance and banking industries awash in bankruptcies, the price of gasoline at staggering levels, 4 billion dollars a month thrown down the toilet in Iraq, etc., etc.. And McCain has supported his economic blunders 95% of the time! It is time for a change.

Your judgement is unfair Mr. Hirsh. First of all, the former FEDs chairman is a humble person compared to most o other power brokers.
Secondly, nobody else has proven up to now, that they understand more from the financial system than he did.
How do you explain the fact that the present government has still no clue how to deal with the bubble of the financial system? Greenspan at least understood that preventing a bubble to burst you have to stop inflating it.
The present government is still blowing with all its powers, though the holes are getting bigger and bigger.

Greenspan had to report to his political masters. This is one of the constraints under which a Fed Chairman has to work. However, Greenspan's role in the current mess cannot be overstated. The dot com bubble gave way to the housing bubble. All under Greenspan's watch. However, the US forgot one crucial truism (surprisingly learnt most painfully during the Great Depression) : News, whether good or bad, always flows from the economy to the stock market and never vice-versa. The US economy is like that of a patient getting adminstered CPR......you can only do so much. The U.S. economy is in a depression and it will not recover.

Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, AIG and the rest of the failed institutions have failed primarily because of former Senator Phil Gramm. The Gramm-Leach-Biley Act stripped away the regulations separating banking from investment companies, insurance companies and mortgage guaranty companies. Those regulations were added after the Great Depression when it became obvious that allowing banks to be in bed with the stock market was a sure way to rig the system to collapse, as it did in 1929.

Lo an behold, a few years after the regulations were removed, the sh!t has hit the fan, and the inter-related investment, insurance, mortgage and banking industries are now starting to collapse, and guess what, you, the taxpayer will have to pay to clean it up.

Phil Gramm is the Senator who brought you the "Enron Loophole" that de-regulated futures trading, causing the prices of oil, gas and food to spiral out of control.

Senator Phil Gramm was McCain's top economic advisor until recently, when he was forced to step down after he said that there is no problem with our economy other than a "mental recession" on the part of a "nation of whiners." Phil Gramm is the man who McCain said he wants to name Secretary of the Treasury if he becomes President. You have to believe John McCain when he says that he knows little about the economy -- so little that he doesn't even know who to choose as an advisor.

Barack Obama addressed the Enron Loophole, futures trading, short-selling and Wall Street de-regulation months ago in his economic position papers, which are available on his website. Obama has been saying all along that he is going to put in strict regulations and clean up Wall Street.

McCain just started saying that he favors regulation in the past couple of weeks. How is it that McCain is going to put in new regulations, when he plans to appoint Phil Gramm, the man who authored the de-regulation, as Secretary of the Treasury? McCain says he would fire Christopher Cox, the SEC Chairman, to solve the problem. However, the problem is caused by lack of regulations on the legislative level, regulations that were removed before Cox was appointed. The SEC can only enforce regulations that actually exist, so making a scapegoat of Cox solves nothing. I would suggest that McCain is guilty of saying what's politically expedient, that he does not actually intend to regulate the banking industry. McCain knows that most Americans are unaware of the details.

I am a middle-aged white conservative Republican who loves America. I am voting for Barack Obama.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15050.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/145011/page/1
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6007788.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E0D81038F934A25752C0A9649C8B63
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gG5Rzb

One comment in greenspan's defense. like his mantra about irrational exuberance, he was chanting about the "fraudulent" real estate market at the end of his term to anyone who would listen.

We had a complete absence of financial leadership from Alan Greenspan.
Bush should never have renewed Alan Greenspan's term at the Fed.

LOL !! i know this has nothing to do with this article but the H.C. supporter/ fundraiser that swiched to support McCain called those who "cling to Religion & guns " said they are Red Necks... LOL !! & Obama is consisdered the Elist......

her very words" I dont support Obama because he is arogant & said ppl "cling to religion & guns you know those red necks" .... LMAO !! ( i guess we wont see her on the stomp aginst those arogant ,Elist Dems).. But she fund rasied for H.C. ( talk about insider hook-up's this women is Londons Finest; you know Paris Hilton types').

Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, AIG and the rest of the failed institutions have failed primarily because of former Senator Phil Gramm. The Gramm-Leach-Biley Act stripped away the regulations separating banking from investment companies, insurance companies and mortgage guaranty companies. Those regulations were added after the Great Depression when it became obvious that allowing banks to be in bed with the stock market was a sure way to rig the system to collapse, as it did in 1929.

Lo an behold, a few years after the regulations were removed, the sh!t has hit the fan, and the inter-related investment, insurance, mortgage and banking industries are now starting to collapse, and guess what, you, the taxpayer will have to pay to clean it up.

Phil Gramm is the Senator who brought you the "Enron Loophole" that de-regulated futures trading, causing the prices of oil, gas and food to spiral out of control.

Senator Phil Gramm was McCain's top economic advisor until recently, when he was forced to step down after he said that there is no problem with our economy other than a "mental recession" on the part of a "nation of whiners." Phil Gramm is the man who McCain said he wants to name Secretary of the Treasury if he becomes President. You have to believe John McCain when he says that he knows little about the economy -- so little that he doesn't even know who to choose as an advisor.

Barack Obama addressed the Enron Loophole, futures trading, short-selling and Wall Street de-regulation months ago in his economic position papers, which are available on his website. Obama has been saying all along that he is going to put in strict regulations and clean up Wall Street.

McCain just started saying that he favors regulation in the past couple of weeks. How is it that McCain is going to put in new regulations, when he plans to appoint Phil Gramm, the man who caused the de-regulation, as Secretary of the Treasury? McCain says he would fire Christopher Cox, the SEC Chairman, to solve the problem. However, the problem is caused by lack of regulations on the legislative level, regulations that were removed before Cox was appointed. The SEC can only enforce regulations that actually exist, so making a scapegoat of Cox solves nothing. I would suggest that McCain is guilty of saying what's politically expedient, that he does not actually intend to regulate the banking industry. McCain knows that most Americans are unaware of the details.

I am a middle-aged white conservative Republican who loves America. I am voting for Barack Obama.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15050.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/145011/page/1
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6007788.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E0D81038F934A25752C0A9649C8B63
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gG5Rzb

Posted By: Victover @ 09/18/2008 12:25:17 PM
Comment: I appreciate the quality of your info, Old Joe, but I'm not in business. I'm just trying to understand what's the fuss and difference between the 85 billios and the waterfalls of money open wide by the First Chimp.
I'll stay put

Posted By: Victover @ 09/18/2008 12:25:17 PM
Comment: I appreciate the quality of your info, Old Joe, but I'm not in business. I'm just trying to understand what's the fuss and difference between the 85 billios and the waterfalls of money open wide by the First Chimp.
I'll stay put

Michael, in addition to Greenspan you cannot leave out the SEC.
Special exemptions from the SEC are in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years -- as well as the massive current unwind
The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms You read that right Senators-- the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1. Instead, the 2004 exemption -- given only to 5 firms -- allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.
Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won't be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.
As Mr. Pickard points out that "The proof is in the pudding ??? three of the five broker-dealers have blown up." So while the SEC runs around reinstating short selling rules, and clueless pension fund managers mindlessly point to the wrong issue, we learn that it was the SEC who was in large part responsible for the reckless leverage that led to the current crisis.
You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.
And the person that said it all:

Lee Pickard, former director, SEC trading and markets division.
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/regulatory-exem.html


PS:
Michael, nice call on Greenspan. Meanwhile, ABC missed it big time when ABC???s Stephanopoulos failed to report the real ???abc???s of Greenspan???s recession/housing talk last Sunday ???especially that he is an advisor to hedge fund Paulson & Co. Why is that important? Hedge fund manager John Paulson earned billions of dollars last year by betting against the housing market. Critics of Greenspan are specific: It???s one thing for Greenspan to sell books and give speeches to try to salvage his reputation???Nixon did that too, with more success and less profit. It is quite another for him to benefit in a far more direct fashion from the devastation he created, by hooking up with the fund that scored the biggest kill from the worst aspects of the negative real interest rates that Greenspan put into effect.??? That quote is from Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith. ABC owed it to it???s listeners to question Greenspan on this point ???especially if it considers itself a news organization. And ???yes,??? Greenspan had no business being on the show without reading that disclaimer to ABC???s audience. Shame on ABC, and Greenspan.

Link to ABC: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/greenspan-to-st.html

Michael, in addition to Greenspan you cannot leave out the SEC.
Special exemptions from the SEC are in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years -- as well as the massive current unwind
The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms You read that right Senators-- the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1. Instead, the 2004 exemption -- given only to 5 firms -- allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.
Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won't be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.
As Mr. Pickard points out that "The proof is in the pudding ??? three of the five broker-dealers have blown up." So while the SEC runs around reinstating short selling rules, and clueless pension fund managers mindlessly point to the wrong issue, we learn that it was the SEC who was in large part responsible for the reckless leverage that led to the current crisis.
You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.
And the person that said it all:

Lee Pickard, former director, SEC trading and markets division.
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/regulatory-exem.html


PS:
Michael, nice call on Greenspan. Meanwhile, ABC missed it big time when ABC???s Stephanopoulos failed to report the real ???abc???s of Greenspan???s recession/housing talk last Sunday ???especially that he is an advisor to hedge fund Paulson & Co. Why is that important? Hedge fund manager John Paulson earned billions of dollars last year by betting against the housing market. Critics of Greenspan are specific: It???s one thing for Greenspan to sell books and give speeches to try to salvage his reputation???Nixon did that too, with more success and less profit. It is quite another for him to benefit in a far more direct fashion from the devastation he created, by hooking up with the fund that scored the biggest kill from the worst aspects of the negative real interest rates that Greenspan put into effect.??? That quote is from Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith. ABC owed it to it???s listeners to question Greenspan on this point ???especially if it considers itself a news organization. And ???yes,??? Greenspan had no business being on the show without reading that disclaimer to ABC???s audience. Shame on ABC, and Greenspan.

Link to ABC: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/greenspan-to-st.html