[NYTr] The Lies of Alan Greenspan

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Nation - Sep 17, 2007
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=233482


The Lies of Alan Greenspan

by William Greider

Alan Greenspan has come back from the tomb of history to correct the
record. He did not make any mistakes in his eighteen-year tenure as
Federal Reserve chairman. He did not endorse the regressive Bush tax
cuts of 2001 that pumped up the federal deficits and aggravated
inequalities. He did not cause the housing bubble that is now in
collapse. He did not ignore the stock market bubble that subsequently
melted away and cost investors $6 trillion. He did not say the Iraq War
is "largely about oil."

Check the record. These are all lies.

Greenspan's testimony endorsing the Bush tax cuts was extremely
influential but now he wants to run away from it.  

In the instance of Iraq, Greenspan is actually correcting his own
memoir, The Age of Turbulence, which just came out. This weekend,
newspapers reported provocative snippets from the book, including this:
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what
every everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Wow, talk about your "inconvenient truth." Greenspan was blithely
acknowledging what official Washington has always denied and the news
media faithfully ignored. "Blood for oil." No, no, no, that's not what
he meant, Greenspan corrected in a follow-up interview. [Bob Woodward
in Monday's Washington Post] He was only saying that "taking out Saddam
was essential" for "oil security" and the global economy.

Are you confused? Welcome to the world of slippery truth Greenspan has
always lived in. He was the Maestro, as Bob Woodward's loving portrait
dubbed him. Wall Street loved the Chairman best because the traders and
bankers knew he was always on their side and would come to their
rescue. The major news media treated him like an Old Testament prophet.
Whatever the chairman said was carved on stone tablets, even when it
didn't make any sense, as it often didn't.

Some of us who followed his tracks more closely, were not so kind.
Harry Reid, now the Democratic Senate leader, said Greenspan was "one
of the biggest political hacks in Washington." Amen. I called him "the
one-eyed chairman" who could always spot reasons to stomp on the real
economy of work and production, but was utterly blind to the
destructive chaos in the financial system. No matter. The adoration of
him was nearly universal.

Until now. The economic consequences of his rule are accumulating and
even the dullest financial reporters are stumbling on crumbs of truth
about Greenspan's legendary reign. It sowed profound and dangerous
imbalances in the US economy. That's what happens when government power
tips the balance in favor of capital over labor, favoring super-rich
over middle class and poor, then holds it there for nearly a generation.

Things get out of whack and now the country is paying big time. A pity
reporters and politicians didn't have the nerve to ask these questions
when Greenspan was in power.

He retired only a year ago, but is already trying to revise the
history. To explain away blunders that are now a financial crisis
facing his successor. To rearrange the facts in exculpatory ways. To
deny his right-wing ideological bias and his raw partisanship in behalf
of the Bush Republicans.

The man is shrewd. He can see the conservative era he celebrated and
helped to impose upon the American economy is in utter ruin. He is
trying to get some distance from it before the blood splashes all over
his reputation.   Of course, he also came back to cash in--an $8
million advance for a book that is sure to be a huge bestseller. I
don't want to be unkind, but Greenspan could have avoided all the
embarrassing questions if his book was posthumous.

I haven't the read it yet. I have a hunch I am not going to like it.