Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

‘I made a mistake,’ admits Greenspan
FT.com ^ | 10/23/08 | Alan Beattie and James Politi

Posted on 10/24/2008 3:05:20 AM PDT by Born Conservative

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said on Thursday the credit crisis had exceeded anything he had imagined and admitted he was wrong to think that banks would protect themselves from financial market chaos.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders,” he said.

In the second of two days of tense hearings on Capitol Hill, Henry Waxman, chairman of the House of Representatives, clashed with current and former regulators and with Republicans on his own committee over blame for the financial crisis.

Mr Waxman said Mr Greenspan’s Federal Reserve – along with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Treasury – had propagated “the prevailing attitude in Washington... that the market always knows best.”

Mr Waxman blamed the Fed for failing to curb aggressive lending practices, the SEC for allowing credit rating agencies to operate under lax standards and the Treasury for opposing “responsible oversight” of financial derivatives.

(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: 110th; banking; economy; fed; greenspan; sec; treasury; waxman
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-66 next last
To: ari-freedom
"I made a mistake" admits Greenspan

(In other news)

"I made a mistake"--Napolean after Russia
"I made a mistake"--Custer after Little Big Horn
"I made a mistake"--Captain of SS Titanic
"I made a mistake"--Nixon after Watergate
"I made a mistake"--Kim Bassinger after Alec
"I made a mistake"--Marlyn Monroe after JFK
"I made a mistake"--Joseph Hazelwood of Exxon Valdez
"I made a mistake"--Reactor operator in Chernoble

"We made a mistake"--American electorate after Bush

41 posted on 10/24/2008 5:21:39 AM PDT by meandog (Hey Rush: Get it through your head...George W. Bush deserves the blame!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: ritewingwarrior

I certainly have a reason for revolt or revolution. I’m a pretty conservative investor and my retirement account on paper, is down over 80,000 dollars. Maybe I ought to call Barney’s office and ask for an appointment. LOL, I’m not in his district much less his state. Which would be his out. But none of that doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible to some degree.

Frankly I don’t think I would get a word in edgewise if he did grant an audience. The blustering, dunderheaded, queer, certainly has a way with words, and will talk his way out of just about any scrape, but the final one, where a great many of us will have an opportunity to forgive his sorry fat rear end, if he continues to posture it’s Bush’s fault.


42 posted on 10/24/2008 6:21:19 AM PDT by wita
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: ari-freedom
his mistake was creating too much easy money

Is big Al going to be a man and pay for his monumental fu*k up?

43 posted on 10/24/2008 6:29:32 AM PDT by dearolddad (Like $6.00 + gas? Be sure to thank a democrap.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: dearolddad

Teacher, teacher, can a answer that question, please? Well, I know I can, but may I?


44 posted on 10/24/2008 6:32:44 AM PDT by wita
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: wita
"I certainly have a reason for revolt or revolution. I’m a pretty conservative investor and my retirement account on paper, is down over 80,000 dollars."

Join the club..

Don't worry OBAMA IS GONNA SAVE US!!!!!

Lyrics say "He's gonna change things...rearrange things...Obama's gonna save us"!!

Yippee, all hail Obamasiah!

groan.

45 posted on 10/24/2008 6:40:08 AM PDT by spectre (Spectre's wife (Pray for our Nation)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: SierraWasp; george76; ASA Vet; BIGLOOK; BOBTHENAILER

He knew just like he knew that so many of the wonderful dot.comers during the Clintoon years were nothing but Liberal Ponzi schemes posing as businesses.

Which is why he came out with “Irrational Exuberance”.

Being Andrea Mitchell’s old boy toy, he didn’t have the honesty and balls to tell the Americans what was really happening with the Clintoon dot.coms.

So he coined the phrase “Irrational Exuberance”.

We are seeing and hearing something similiar from Biden re the testing of Obama. Biden got the crap scared out of him in the security briefing he went to. Then Obama’s response re what he would do re the possible happening, scared Biden even more. So twice he has mentioned the testing of Obama.


46 posted on 10/24/2008 6:41:22 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Liberal pseudo businesses like NY Slimes, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mack, Tribune are Ponzi Schemes)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Born Conservative
More political spin by the MSM. No, I take Greenspan at his word and cut him no slack. The real culprits are Frank and Dodd who instituted a very poor FISCAL policy. Greenspan can only do so much by trying to correct a poor FISCAL policy with a MONETARY policy fix.

This item is meant to blame Republicans for the current situation. And just before election time....

47 posted on 10/24/2008 6:46:13 AM PDT by mlocher (USA is a sovereign nation)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mad_as_he$$; BOBTHENAILER; SierraWasp; Liz

“The last person on earth to realize it was the creator of the monster himself. To him I say “No $hit Greenie, I knew it five years ago.”

Absolutely, the Whoreacle from Omaha, and I decided at about the same time to dump any Fannie and Freddie bonds. I, also, got out of any mutual fund with more than a very small % of these junk bonds or big holdings in Fannie and Freddie stock.

If our search program worked and had a date search, I could tell you, when I did this and posted warnings about this pending sh$t storm.

In same time frame, I cancelled Brinker’s news letter and stopped listening to Bill the Head Pimp of Pimpco Bonds and Brinker. They were in bed with Greenspam and others pushing these bad investments as safe and wonderful investments.

Jake Reno and her henchwoman, Gorelicker, were threatening any bank/lending company which tried to do a good job of appraising homes and evaluating people for home loans. Red lining became green lining.


48 posted on 10/24/2008 6:53:23 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Liberal pseudo businesses like NY Slimes, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mack, Tribune are Ponzi Schemes)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Born Conservative
“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders,”

The mistake was not realizing that they would lean so heavily on government insurance and bailouts. If not for "regulation", they WOULD have been much more cognizant of protecting their own shareholders.

49 posted on 10/24/2008 6:55:22 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (I AM JOE THE PLUMBER!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Post5203

Sounds like the Clintonian, “Mistakes were made.”


50 posted on 10/24/2008 7:01:52 AM PDT by dfwgator (I hate Illinois Marxists)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator
Sounds like the Clintonian, “Mistakes were made.”

No, it sounds like a Democrat congress whose guilt is driving them to blame anyone and everyone else they can.

Greenspan isn't the bad guy here folks. Hate to break the bad news to you.

As usual, it's the hypocritical and selfish Dems.

51 posted on 10/24/2008 7:05:06 AM PDT by TChris (So many useful idiots...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: mad_as_he$$
"Sad but true. If Barry wins they will all walk away - laughing at the rubes. "

And start setting the building blocks for the next financial crisis to arise in 10-20 years.

52 posted on 10/24/2008 7:05:43 AM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: TChris

Well the seeds of this disaster were sown on Greenspan’s watch, so he deserves a considerable part of the blame.


53 posted on 10/24/2008 7:08:57 AM PDT by dfwgator (I hate Illinois Marxists)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: mass55th
Yes, Shades of Michael Milkin.
54 posted on 10/24/2008 7:12:31 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (Nemo me impune lacessit (Never mess with an old man. he will just kill you.))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: Born Conservative

Once a puppet always a puppet!


55 posted on 10/24/2008 7:18:19 AM PDT by JayAr36 (Every day, one step closer to the sinkhole of Socialism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator
Well the seeds of this disaster were sown on Greenspan’s watch, so he deserves a considerable part of the blame.

I disagree. "His watch" doesn't mean that Chairman Greenspan had any authority to control bad practices in the securities market or alter government requirements forcing lenders to make risky loans.

It wasn't Greenspan who blocked Republican attempts to tighten lending rules. It was the Democrats.

Alan Greenspan is entirely innocent in this mess, and the Dems know it. This is nothing more than their usual projection, played out in senate hearings.

It's disgusting.

56 posted on 10/24/2008 7:18:23 AM PDT by TChris (So many useful idiots...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: Born Conservative
Greenspan was only partly wrong. Self-interest is a perfectly good check on the markets -- as long as it is tempered by Self-government based on Christian Morality. It used to be that self-interest included not only doing what is in the best interest of one's pocketbook, but also the best interests of one's soul. Having lost the moral basis for self-interest, we are left with only greed.

Alan Keyes hit the bulls-eye years ago when he said, "We don't have an economic problem, we have a moral problem."
The truth of these words will be acknowledged by all at some point, either in this world or the next.

57 posted on 10/24/2008 7:28:39 AM PDT by JHL (Ps 118:8-9)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ari-freedom

That’s how I read it too, Ari.

Not sure how much Greenspan is to blame BUT the banks etc. just handed over the keys to the vault to any jobless or lying mortgage applicant, mortgage broker, etc.


58 posted on 10/24/2008 7:39:32 AM PDT by Let's Roll (Drill HERE! Drill NOW! MORE refineries! Pay LESS!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Grampa Dave

He knew just like he knew that so many of the wonderful dot.comers during the Clintoon years were nothing but Liberal Ponzi schemes posing as businesses.

Which is why he came out with “Irrational Exuberance”.

and all their little chickens are coming home to roost!!!


59 posted on 10/24/2008 7:50:09 AM PDT by BOBTHENAILER (One by one, in small groups or in whole armies, we don't care how we do it, but we're gonna getcha)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: napscoordinator
I know that Greenspan is not a favorite on Free Republic, but I do like the fact that he is admitting that he made a mistake.

His real mistake was keeping interest rates too high in 1999 and 2000, which helped slam down the economy and led to the situation where interest rates had to go very low.

All this finger pointing is going to result in more regulations that hurt the supply side of the economy and expensive demand side stimulus that doesn't work.

60 posted on 10/24/2008 7:59:05 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-66 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson