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Fri 14 Sep, 2007 10:51 am
GREENSPAN: IT'S NOT MY FAULT
By JANET WHITMAN
New York Post
September 14, 2007
Alan Greenspan says don't blame him for the latest market turmoil.
The former Federal Reserve chairman said critics who have argued recently that he helped bring on the crisis in the market for risky home loans by cutting interest rates for three straight years "are mistaken.
"It was our job to unfreeze the American banking system if we wanted the economy to function," Greenspan told CBS' "60 Minutes" during an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.
"This required that we keep rates modestly low."
Greenspan said he didn't recognize until very late in 2005 that the dubious lending practices - which gave homebuyers loans with low adjustable rates that could jump to precipitous levels - were serious enough to damage the economy.
"While I was aware a lot of these practices were going on, I had no notion of how significant they had become until very late," he said.
As part of his 18-year reign as Fed chief, Greenspan ratcheted down interest rates from 2001 until 2004.
Though one Fed governor sounded an alarm about the rise of questionable lending tactics, Greenspan said he wasn't in a position to deal with the problem.
"Well, it was nothing to look into particularly because we knew there was a number of such practices going on, but it's very difficult for banking regulators to deal with that," he said.
Greenspan said it isn't clear that interest rate cuts would have slowed the recent stock market slide.
Who or which critics are suggesting it is his fault?
They say that when America sneezes we catch a cold.
There's a run on a bank going on here. Big queues. Mostly elderly. Late opening. Ministers coming on telly reassuring us that everything is okay. Not to panic. Natch nobody is taking any notice of ministerial assurance where life savings are involved. We are being told that it is due to "turmoil" in American markets caused by the sub-prime fiasco which was caused by a complex web of things which is probably irreducibly complex.
It's great street theatre. Shifted everything off the top lead story position.
BBB
This NY Post piece represents the first example of what will be a concerted effort from this paper and other dependable right wing 'news' sources to discredit the ex fed chief. Here's why...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15greenspan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil
Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil
by Graham Paterson
9/16/07
AMERICA's elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.
In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush's economic policies.
However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he says.
Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.
Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam's support for terrorism.
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