"Buying the silence." White House photo by Shealah CraigheadForgetting the silence the White House bought and paid for with a cheap Presidential Medal of Freedom on a blue ribbon they awarded then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspin, in November of 2005, Greenspin's new book to be released this week is highly critical of the Bush administration's abandonment of all fiscal responsibility.
This is the same fed chairman who, just days ago, said of the growing economic crisis which is now resulting from subprime lending in the housing market to people with questionable credit, "I really didn't get it until very late in 2005 and 2006."
Perhaps the prerequisites for future Chairman of the Federal Reserve candidates should be amended to read: "...strong background in banking and economics not necessary, however, solid grounding in reality and common sense mandatory."
4 comments:
during this administration, that medal has come to stand for professional liar and nothing else.
In a way it's like the money given to the whore after her job is done.
Yes, patricia. But like the true professional (albeit cheap whores) they are, at least they don't expect payment (in ribbons and gold plate) until after they've served their john well!
BTW, Greenspin's interview by 60 Minutes last eve was scary indeed. He contradicted himself a couple of times and then admitted (proudly) his testimony to reps and senators sometimes was a lot of mumbo jumbo!
This from the man who called investors in the late 90's "irrationally exuberant" as he was continually throwing gasoline on the interest rates fire to fuel that exuberance.
One of the things I look forward to each Monday (more than MN Football) is The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle that appears with a new commentary. Written by Jim Kunstler, today's had the following to say about Greenspin (who often times looked like a rattled, bumbling idiot last night on 60 Minutes) and his policies:
"Greenspan claims he had no idea that his cutting of interest rates to near zero would produce any irregularities in the US economy. Apparently he hadn't noticed that the Big Fund Boyz called him "Easy Al" for a reason. Or that when you introduce nearly free "money" (as in "available for lending") into a system of financial trade, the recognition of moral hazard tends to evaporate. As the nation's chief bank regulator, Greenspan also apparently failed to notice the upsurge in dodgy lending practices previously only seen among mafia loan sharks, drug dealers, or twelve-year-olds playing Monopoly."
"...This, of course, represents an insidious psychology. It could only happen in a culture that has come off the rails mentally, so to speak, as ours has in the sense that nobody has any sense of consequence, neither the leaders nor those who affect to follow the leaders. The leading religion in America is not evangelical Christianity, it is the worship of unearned riches, and its golden rule is the belief that is is possible to get something for nothing. Its holy shrines are Las Vegas and Wall Street. (And, by the way, has anybody heard the evangelical Christians complain about Las Vegas? They complain about a lot of things, but are themselves among the greatest believers in unearned riches -- given their preference for prayer over earnest effort in the service of solving life's problems.)"
For the full text of Kunstler's rant, visit The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle.
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