Greenspan acts as though he himself discovered the role of human nature in economics. This is the arrogance of most economists who consider their discipline a ‘science’. Human systems cannot be forecast with any precision solely by mathematics. It’s like a meteorologist who never looks out of the window.
He seems to have learned little from his friendship with Rand. I never bought into her Objectivist philosophy, but her insights into and portrayal of the grubbing nature of moochers and politicians is dead on and timeless.
He certainly didn't. Rand based her economic philosophy on Ludwig Von Mises's Austrian School. Greenspan acts as if he's never heard of it -- and probably hasn't.
It's amazing to me just how incurious some people are. Yet they gain tremendous power and wealth.
“I never bought into her Objectivist philosophy, but her insights into and portrayal of the grubbing nature of moochers and politicians is dead on and timeless.”
Same here. Randists are annoying little dogmatists, who never bother to question a premise, so long as it’s Rand’s. In the middle of Fountainhead, I just put the book down and never looked at it again, though I did endure Atlas Shrugged and Anthem (ok. We, The Living was pretty good). But did she ever sock it to the pomos, psuedo-intellectuals and power-mongers!
I remember Isaac Asimov’s science fiction series called the Foundation Trilogy in which a mathematician was able to place a value on every human factor to enable him to predict the future history of the human race.
I think Greenspan thinks he was Harry Selden, the mathematician in the series. A great book, based on an impossible premise...a Great United States Economy, based also on false premises...
Neither accurately reflect the capacity of people to become dependent upon handouts.
I think we Americans, are tamed wolves, formerly able to eat what we kill, and now only capable of waiting for the zoo-keeper to fill our bowls.
can we call a spade a spade. does anyone really think that greenspan(and by the way, he’s married to andrea Mitchell, one of the most Marxist journalist there is) really could care about the Christian middle class in this country, or was his job to transfer wealth to new York and away from the heartland.
and why would it be so hard for anyone to not believe it?