I used to tell my father, when he wanted to talk about Fed policy and rates and the markets, "don't get me started on Alan Greenspan." This was even before the dot-com bubble collapsed. So, I'll keep this post very short. Greenspan was recently questioned by the indefatigable Henry Waxman, who asked:

“You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”

Greenspan replied, “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

Distressed? Well fuck you Alan Greenspan!

Of course, when Waxman followed up and asked, "were you wrong?" Greenspan replied, "partially."

Then he said, "“This crisis,” he told lawmakers, “has turned out to be much broader than anything I could have imagined. It has morphed from one gripped by liquidity restraints to one in which fears of insolvency are now paramount.”

More than anything you could have imagined? And this man was actually considered a 'Maestro?' So much for foresight.

You know what Alan, I've forgotten more than you will ever know about markets and I learned all my lessons the hard way--by making mistakes, and accepting responsibility for them. But I never made a fatal mistake like yours, which will leave you an historical legacy of immense negativity, and most of my decisions in life and business have been tempered by prudence, something you and your Randian ideology know nothing about. This ideology must be crushed. It, and it's cousin, neo-conservatism, must be eradicated from the body politic of the United States if we are to regain any semblance of sanity in our economic and domestic and foreign policies. It's that simple.

Sorry to be so crude, but sometimes, well, I gotta call 'em like I see them.

Credit where credit is due, however, when Greenspan discussed the role of Freddie and Fannie and the Republican meme of the CRA:

Many Republican lawmakers on the oversight committee tried to blame the mortgage meltdown on the unchecked growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government-sponsored mortgage-finance companies that were placed in a government conservatorship last month. Republicans have argued that Democratic lawmakers blocked measures to reform the companies.

But Mr. Greenspan, who was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan, placed far more blame on the Wall Street companies that bundled subprime mortgages into pools and sold them as mortgage-backed securities. Global demand for the securities was so high, he said, that Wall Street companies pressured lenders to lower their standards andproduce more “paper.”

“The evidence strongly suggests that without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations (undeniably the original source of the crisis) would have been far smaller and defaults accordingly far lower,” he said.

Might that be a crude attempt at salvaging your reputation? Better late than never? Actually, no, better never in this case. My judgment of you stands, you're a fraud.