"The Invisible Hand", a.k.a "Bigby's Crushing Fist"

[pyat]

At the current rate of loss, the Dow will reach zero by next week! And it won't stay at zero, no sir! We'll enter the strange and terrible land of NegaDow. The government will own everything, except itself. The paper money and coins in your wallet will turn into units of antiwealth, and explode violently upon exposure to free market forces.

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Presuming you're being sarcastic, here.

Remember, he didn't retire till 2006. He's a Libertarian and Objectivist who has stated that the banking industry can regulate itself.

While it obviously be a mistake to put the blame on any one person, his economic policies are at least partly to blame. He has come close to admitting this, saying in 2007 that he "didn't really get it until late 2005 or 2006", with "it" being the fact that the market was going to collapse. Though, when he cut the lending rates in 2002 after the 9/11 attacks, he predicted it would lead to a surge in mortgages and re-financing.

In 2004 he was advising homeowners to get adjustable rate mortgages. At that point, the federal lending rate was 1%. Two years later, he'd raised it to 5.25%, so all those people who got adjustable rate mortgages got the shaft.

Greenspan is currently claiming that his policies were sound. Bankers just go too greedy. Gosh, corporations getting greedy. What a surprise, Mr. Greenspan...

The New York Times looked at his role in the current crisis earlier this month (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html).