Alan Greenspan Is Such a Huge Pathetic Loser (an objective perspective on the man and his work)

[For my loyal and cherished readers: I hope you'll pardon the following posting. I assure you I didn't realize what was about to happen until it was entirely too late. In fact, it's rather like watching a car-crash in slow motion, and thus I want to protect you from any unnecessary trauma -- or even just from getting anything unbecoming on you which might soil your person. I suspect that if I'd known how this would all end up I wouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.... Yours, S.L.]

Greenspan says U.S. deficit cannot grow forever.

No really. He did. He said it to a whole bunch of Mexican bankers, too. I can't tell from the article, but I'm pretty sure he didn't even break a smile or snort scotch out his nose or nothin'...

"Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said on Monday the huge US current account deficit cannot expand forever as foreigners will one day tire of financing it.

But in a speech to the Bank of Mexico, he said the US economy should be able to weather the adjustment provided it stays flexible."

Stay flexible... Got it. Flexible. Yes.

And vigilant for terrorists! Vigilant. And flexible.

We'll do that. Thanks, Al. Have another scotch.

"...But the deficit "cannot persist indefinitely", he said, as investors are likely to grow alarmed about the country's ability to pay its external debts as the trade and capital account shortfall expands further.

...But there is little US policymakers can or should do to stem this natural evolution of market forces, Greenspan added.

...Americans' insatiable desire for imported goods, coupled with slower growth among major industrial partners, have sent the US current account deficit skywards.

WTF!?! Did he just blame us!?! How dare you, you snotty little horse-turd!

So.... The policymakers hands are all tied, is that it? It's all just the "natural evolution of market forces"?
And because all those spoiled little American people just won't stop buying all them foreign goods THAT THEIR CORPORATIONS NO LONGER ALLOW THEM TO MAKE FOR THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY SHIPPED ALL THE JOBS OVERSEAS WHICH IS WHAT'S SENDING THE CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT "SKYWARDS" IN THE FIRST PLACE!

So now this whole mess is all OUR fault, is it?

That's it Mr. Ayn Rand's Man in Washington--I wanna fight you! I'll take you to the curb right here in Minneapolis, we can even do it on your turf in the lobby of the Federal Reserve Building!

I mean how are you gonna just disrespect me like that and then not expect me to show up for myself? Do you WANT a fight? I'll fight you. I'll fight you there in Washington if you want, we'll throw down in the headlights of your limo you Banksta' poseur wannabe....

The Fed chief noted that private international investors are using the euro more in their transactions this year.

But central banks have not so far followed suit, he said, playing down the prospect of the dollar losing its status as a reserve currency because of any deficit adjustment.

Unlike Britain after World War II, when the pound lost its own status as the world's favoured reserved currency as the British empire unravelled, the United States today is a highly deregulated economy.

"Any diminution of the reserve status of the dollar, should it occur, is likely to be readily absorbed by a far more flexible US economy than existed in Britain immediately following World War II," Greenspan said.

"This, of course, presupposes that we in the United States in the years ahead maintain and, I trust, enhance our economy's degree of flexibility and our involvement in the highly successful globalisation of recent decades."

Oh my god. You really don't have a clue. Do you G.?

It's not actually just the politics of the job or the fact that every monkey with a Bloomberg hangs onto your every word while analysing the number of grey-hairs-to-white-hairs on your right eyebrow before deciding whether they should buy more Google today or maybe sell it short instead....

No, it's all so clear now. Down deep, you don't have any agenda. You don't have any evil plan. You just don't even have a basic clue where this is all headed, do you?

I mean, what's the deal...you couldn't figure out what to do with yourself if you retired, so you kept hanging-on at the Fed instead...creating liquidity, absorbing liquidity, creating more liquidity, whatever seemed to work, whatever made the most people happy....

The British Pound didn't lose it's status because its economy wasn't "flexible" enough (flexible doesn't even mean anything and you know it...quit being so full of yourself). It unravelled because it became irrelevant. The world's confidence in Britain as a continuing world-power waned, and investors stopped buying its currency as it became clear there was a better game in town over "across the pond". And there, but for the grace of God, go we here in the U.S. What possible "flexibility" do you envision to restore our gutted manufacturing sector, fuel job and wage growth, and re-establish trust and essential confidence in the U.S. as a nation? And how do we maintain flexibility and pursue globalisation when it's globalisation itself that's destroying our flexibility (whatever that is).

Do you even get what you're saying? You can't laud the politico-corporate scheme of globalisation without realizing that it only serves to cannibalize U.S. wage-growth and job-security and to feed foreign investment and income disparity. And yet you actually spout this crap like we're all too busy watching Desperate Housewives and playing Powerball to actually call bullshit on the utter absurdity of it:

"This, of course, presupposes that we in the United States in the years ahead maintain and, I trust, enhance our economy's degree of flexibility and our involvement in the highly successful globalisation of recent decades."

I know what that means. I'm not stupid. It means you want to flood even more Wal-Bucks into the system so that the multi-national industries and banks can make a last-ditch effort at milking globalisation for all it's worth then high-tail their assets out of the U.S. before it collapses. Yes...now it makes sense. "Flexibility" is evidently Fed-speak for not having all your eggs in the U.S. basket....

In all sincerity Mr. Magoo, I really hate to get personally critical about anyone I've never met. In person you might be an amiable fellow, "quick with a joke, or to light up your smoke" or whatever. But the world my children will grow up in is going to be meagre and uncertain and difficult because you couldn't keep your flippin' fumble-fingered policies off of it. Because you evidently thought you could "paper" over all our problems until they might somehow miraculously take care of themselves. I mean, I've learned the futility and foolishness of that immature fantasy many times over, and I'm less than half your age.

So let's be honest, really honest. You and your peers have continually thrown good money after bad trying to solve every problem the world's economies encountered, and in the process you've only delayed and amplified the inevitable. You disrespected individual free-market participants and supported political and institutional manipulations, thereby destroying faith in fair and open capital markets for the average American. You extended the largest loan balance in the history of human civilization to an administration who's chief "product" has been fear, hatred and humiliation -- how was this ever presumed to be a sound investment of taxpayer obligations? In short, you have always acceded to people in positions of power, and clearly had no interest in respecting the dignity of the American populace or even your nominal duty to keep our books with any integrity. You created money that was never earned honestly, loaned it out foolishly, allowed massive deficit spending which we will never be able to repay, and within a few years (after you've gone to your little cottage in the Hamptons or wherever) we are all going to get royally screwed because of it.

And then you have the unconscionable gall to plead "well what were we to do, it's all just market forces outside of our control". That's not even mean. It's just pathetic.

And of course I haven't even touched on the broad and quite legitimate questions and concerns about what exactly is the true purpose of the Fed Chairman, and of the Federal Reserve in general? I'll just suffice it to say it obviously isn't accountability to the American people. No, simply taking your duties on a superficial level, you've shown a truly criminal incompetence.

Still, I'm not saying that anyone else could have avoided the same tragic outcome. I suspect that the cards in this game were dealt a long time ago. But the pathetic part is how you have just kept playing along as though the deck was honest, and as though no one was ever the wiser. And evidently you're still content to keep playing, even as you fade away into disgrace. Well, enjoy your retirement you shallow little shadow of a man. But don't ever, ever think that your time here was well spent, or that you left the world a better place than you found it. Or even that you've gotten away with anything.

Because as the saying goes, "in the final judgement of history, perhaps the real purpose of a man's life is merely to set himself an example for others to learn from".

Comments

[bart]

Nice post, Steven, the Mogambo Guru would weep with joy after reading this posting. :-)

It's hilarious how we're blamed for desiring imported goods since, as you point out, there's basically very little in the way of domestic manufacturing for many, many sectors of the economy anymore.

[SurvivalAcres]

What I want, and what I get are two different things in almost every case. Particularly when I consider what I'd want for people like Greenspan. Like the rest of his ilk, he'll enjoy his waning years in the lap of luxury, never accounting for his failed polices and actions.

I know this is galling as hell (and it should be), but this isn't South America. We're not yet ready to march on the Administration and drag the fat bastards off their fat asses for undermining and destroying our entire future.

We should be, but we're not. Which doesn't say much for us either I'm afraid. We're still too damned busy "documenting the collapse" as I recently put it, which is accomplishing exactly nothing imo. And I am guilty too.

I don't have the solution. This train wreck is going to happen, whether we like it or not, the warning signs are everywhere. While I'd love to see the bastards strung up on a rope where they belong, we're all too preoccupied with watching this manufactured disaster.

[Lucky Lindy]

"This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President [Wilson] signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized....the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill." --
Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. , 1913

[TarNutz]

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the world will accept the New World Order." - David Rockefeller, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank

I think that the focus on Greenspan is a bit off. He's only one of seven Federal Reserve Committee "Governors"; one vote amongst seven... though I can't fault Steve: presented the opportunity for a street-fight with that old hypocrite or his cronies, I'd be tempted too.

Even if Greenspan had grown a sack and started sticking up for the little guys everywhere, he'd have been shuffled quietly offstage... or shot in the mouth, an apparent "suicide", or both. You pick a schmuck to be the apologist that will NEVER bite the hand that feeds him. It's kind of like being pissed about what the Godpigeon does, but taking it out on Frankie, the Godpigeon's Mouthpiece.

Don't worry about the "train wreck". It's going to be made out to be a lot worse than it actually is... unless these creeps are callous enough to order the nuking or spreading of plague to their fellow Americans. Economically, we just need to think outside the box and do what our ancestors in the first American Revolution did (the Confederates in the "second", if you like to think of it that way, were the British Banker's chumps). WE NEED A FIAT, NON-DEBT BASED CURRENCY to pay off the National Debt.

Think about it: even if the Petrodollar crashes and gas costs $12 a gallon, our currency is totally devalued... they will attempt to blame it on the Red Chinese, whose tricksy financial tricks bankrupted America... but we can get RIGHT BACK on an equal footing, perhaps a superior footing, if our economy doesn't include the friction or drag of interest paid on fractionally-created money. We need to say, "No, asshole, we KNOW who screwed America's economy, and you're trying to screw us all a million times worse by frog-marching us into WWIII!"

When the oil crashes the economy, that's the "hiking" of the Armageddon Ball. Most people don't wanna get caught offsides, no matter how maddening it is to simply squat on the American line of scrimmage while our corrupt "coaches" try to figure out a Hail Mary play to save their asses and keep them comfortably well off in the eyes of the "owners".

We the Playas, we the Fanbase, need to demand fair standards in the "ticket price", and all pricing. We may be "spectators, not participants" in their eyes... but have you ever seen a soccer riot in Britan? The Fanbase will FUCK YOU UP if you don't respect 'em: the Elite know this: the French Revolution is VERY MUCH in their minds. For one thing truly defines the fanbase against the Old Guard: we are numerous, young and strong, and most of the Gen X'ers and Gen Next'ers are a pretty amoral, pragmatic bunch that just don't give a fuck. The military-age population (15-44) according to Census 2000 is 44% of the total, or 124,224,142 people. Combine that with a country with over 300 million firearms (that are officially known about), and a combined military of 1,152,137 that is outnumbered about one hundred and six to one...

No, the Elite can't afford to be caught out by an angry mob of Americans united with cause. Just try to make sure that the demands coming from your section of the mob contain the solution necessary to keep us all from starving to death. Ironically, this would force the Europeans and the others in our hegemony to convert their currencies, just to keep up!

"Banking is concieved in inequity and born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from the bankers and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, as they ought to disappear, for this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and to control credit." - Sir Josiah Stamp, Director of the Bank of England in the 1920s

[Phila]

That's some fine, righteous ranting there, and it couldn't be directed at a more deserving target than that demented old fossil.

[A dose of common sense]

You all sound like a bunch of whiny douschebags. With your bitchy attitudes, I doubt any of you could score any chicks. I hope this blog is still around 20 years from now when none of these calamities that you predicted have occured so everyone can laugh at your ignorant asses and see how stupid you all were.

[Nat]

www.greenspanistheman.com

[moby dick]

(blow me)