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Placebo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:57 PM
Original message
Greenspan Comes Under Unprecedented Political Fire


Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan came under political fire this week as never before in his 18-year career.

The Senate's top Democrat, Nevada's Harry Reid, Thursday called the central bank chief "one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington." Reid charged that Greenspan had called for fiscal discipline when Democrats ran Washington but is more tolerant of the government debt run up by President Bush, a fellow Republican.

The New York Times editorial page jabbed Greenspan on Friday for what it called "his familiar act of fealty to Mr. Bush: a vague endorsement of private accounts for Social Security." On the opposite page, Princeton economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman called Greenspan deceitful in his partisanship. Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles on Friday mocked Greenspan as a Bush stooge.

Internet blogs, an increasingly vocal voice in public affairs, were also buzzing on Friday; for example, The Daily Kos, which offers "political analysis and daily rant," issued a call to "unleash the blogosphere" to dig up dirt on "St. Alan."

More...
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pie Donating Member (782 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 08:59 PM
Response to Original message
1. hate him
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Jacobin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:04 PM
Response to Original message
2. The dork endorsed gigantic tax cuts for the wealthiest while
the deficit grows to unmanageable proportions and the dollar slides overseas, the trade deficit grows to historic proportions. Now, he thinks the privatized SS accounts are cool, even though they will add trillions to the national debt.

He's not just a hack. He's unhinged, insane, disconnected from reality, or some crack headed freak who gets his jollies thinking about how he wrecked the american economy after he is dead and gone.
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:04 PM
Response to Original message
3. Greenspan's a Randorrhoid
and he apparently thinks he's gonna take all those stolen riches with him when he does the decent thing and croaks.

I say stolen because he and rich men like him have been looting the working people of this country for decades through the skewed tax code. He knows the tax cuts in 2001 that are still kicking in have been a complete disaster for this country, but as long as HIS numbers in his portfolio keep climbing, he's just peachy with it.

A dead giveaway to what Greenspan has always been was the way he had a hissy fit when wages finally started to inch up during Clinton's last two years.

He hates people who work. He adores people who hoard.
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EVDebs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:56 PM
Response to Reply #3
13. Check out this article on his Rand-yness ! Greenspan Shrugged
www.commondreams.org/views/041800-106.htm

He's so laissez faire that even letting the recent cavalcade of corporate corruption (couldn't pass us the illiteration) go by is something he thinks doesn't sully the 'purity' of unbridled capitalism.

Now with Glass-Stegall recinded and a return of the '20's style corrupt crony-capitalism, the rich can kick back and really ream the lower 98.5% of taxpayers (those making less than $3 million annually).

Warpy, I'm afraid for this country when I remember Louis Brandeis' quote "You can have great wealth or a democracy, but you cannot have both". I found that in Kevin Phillip's great book "Wealth and Democracy : A Political History of the American Rich" and was blown away by his prescience.

God help us all.
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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 11:36 AM
Response to Reply #13
30. another example of how we are kept in the dark when
these decisions are made. I'm pretty well informed about what goes on in politics, but I had no idea greenspan was suckling on ann rand's teat. Unbelieveable.
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Just Me Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:57 AM
Response to Reply #3
29. Everyone knows he's a vulturous corporacrat hack!
His whole philosophy is anchored on wealth generation without regard to moral obligations owed to our fellow Americans or society.

His selfish, "ME, ME, ME" philosophy makes me yack! :puke:
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NYC Liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:04 PM
Response to Original message
4. I'm glad that Dems are on the offense!
Unfortunately, they need to back this up with VOTES! So often I see Dem pols make these great speeches condemning a bill, then they just end up voting for it, because, well "it's gonna pass anyway.."
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PROGRESSIVE1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:04 PM
Response to Original message
5. scum
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cliss Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:05 PM
Response to Original message
6. This old man
is dangerous. Dangerous to our economy, to consumers. The Fed is supposed to be SEPARATE from the government. There's no need for the old coot to be out there, shilling for Bush.

It infuriates me to see that balding old has-been, with his swollen beady eyes and flapping dentures, spouting that the "consumer is not saddled with too much debt".

Get rid of him.
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EVDebs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:00 PM
Response to Reply #6
14. What ???? He said that ? Average debt is rising with a bullet !
Edited on Fri Mar-04-05 10:04 PM by EVDebs
U.S. Consumer Debt Grows at Alarming Rate
Debt Burden Will Intensify When Interest Rates Rise

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10011-2004Jan12?language=printer

"To some, the nation's consumer debt, which dwarfs that of any other country, represents the kind of "bubble" that the stock market grew into during the 1990s." and this

""What's alarming is that doesn't accurately reflect the true distress on various segments of the American population," he said. Not included in the Federal Reserve figures are "new kinds of hybrid financial institutions and new loan products," such as those offered at rent-to-own stores. There, interest rates typically work out to more than 200 percent a year, and sometimes more, Manning said. In one such store catering to middle-class African Americans, he said, the annual interest rate came to 800 percent."

800% interest and the Fed doesn't bat an eye.

and finally

"Although the credit card industry says average household consumer debt comes to $9,000, Manning said, it is actually closer to $13,000 when the roughly 40 percent of households that pay their balances each month are taken out of the equation."

Well, interest rates ARE rising thanks to Al The Rich Man's Pal.
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Leilani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:09 PM
Response to Original message
7. I blame him for the current housing situation
Prices have skyrocketed out of control, due to his keeping rates artificially low.

And he backed the Bush tax cuts, which has resulted in the deficit, more money gone from social security.

And he never met a Free Trade Agreement he didn't like.
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xultar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:21 PM
Response to Original message
8. For those of you who think Reid is a DINO...y'all don't know squat. n/t
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westernpenndem Donating Member (107 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:30 PM
Response to Reply #8
19. Amen on that! Give 'em hell Harry!
His plain speaking is so refreshing. He and most of the Dems took the moral high ground in voting against the Gonzales confirmation. I like this guy. I could swear he's from my neighborhood. No BS tolerated.
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Blower Donating Member (195 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:22 PM
Response to Original message
9. better picture
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0007 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:48 AM
Response to Reply #9
28. Great job!
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LynnTheDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:31 PM
Response to Original message
10. As he's an unprecedented partisan bush-shill hack, so he should come under
Edited on Fri Mar-04-05 09:32 PM by LynnTheDem
unprecedented fire.

TELL ME that ANYONE who was actually non-partisan, and facing unsustainable deficits, would just IGNORE the FACT that keeping bush's TEMPORARY tax cuts for the top 1% richest Americans AS TEMPORARY instead of pushing to make them permanent would solve the social security future short-fall and a whole lot of the deficit problems, instead says we must CUT SS BENEFITS.
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shantipriya Donating Member (367 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:36 PM
Response to Original message
11. Greenspan
They stole the SS surplus and gave it to their friends-pure and simple.How morally upright are Bush and 'span!!!
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MichiganVote Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 09:44 PM
Response to Original message
12. Bought, sold out, lock, stock and barrel, just like Colin Powell
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GainesT1958 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:11 PM
Response to Original message
15. James Wolcott made the point...
Edited on Fri Mar-04-05 10:13 PM by GainesT1958
About Mr. Greenspan "making the maximum amount in Social Security while pulling in a $100,000 annual Federal pension".:eyes:

Alan Greenspan is about as "reliable" and "unbiased" an "economic sage" as his wife is an "unbiased veteran journalist".:puke:

Over the years, he's been reliable in only one thing: kissing the hindquarters of whichever Repub president happens to be in power!:mad:

B-)
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DemocracyInaction Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:18 PM
Response to Original message
16. JesusChrist---Are we really getting polical saavy for a damn change
Yeees. Thank you Reid. Get off of our goddamn whinning knees trying to agrue and counterargue. Just outright call a Republican idiol and dumb assed political hack, a fucking liar and slimy politician. Time to destroy their plaster saints. It's the only way to start destroying their "I AM GOD" status witht he people. Nobody has told the people that the pigs are not God so they just believed and followed. Keep the badmouthing going...........
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unkachuck Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:18 PM
Response to Original message
17. Andrea's husband...
....Mr. Greenspin needs to retire and soon....he's lost all credibility with schmucks like me, who are on the botttom of this pyramid/ponzi scheme called the American economy....

....like Volker, who ran the economy into the ground to break unions in the early '80s, I mean, wip inflation, (remember a$$hole Ford's WIN buttons in the '70s) Greenspin needs to be put out to pasture with good-old Volker....maybe they could co-chair some useless, meaningless, pointless, Washington rubber-stamping commission?....
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VegasWolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:22 PM
Response to Original message
18. His whoring out to keep his job has finally gotten him! n/t
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The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:35 PM
Response to Original message
20. right-wing shill. Our country needed someone objective!
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Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:37 PM
Response to Original message
21. The vulture
He feeds off the innocent and defenseless.
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JDPriestly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 10:40 PM
Response to Original message
22. Did Greenspan ever have children,
raise a family? Does he know what it is like to have to buy shoes and school supplies an new clothes every year for growing schoolchildren on an average or lower salary? You don't save because you can't. You're always a few steps behind what your children need. And there is so much pressure from every direction to buy more and more for your family. It's easy to resist the pressure when you are on your own, but when others depend on you, you don't want to make them go without because you love them. As an Ayn Rand follower, he probably doesn't know what love is.
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deacon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-04-05 11:41 PM
Response to Original message
23. He IS a partisan hack, Reid is 100% correct n/t
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PDX Bara Donating Member (243 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:11 AM
Response to Original message
24. A-A-A-A-A-R-G-H!!!!
My eyes! My Eyes! Need eyewash!
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DeaconBlues Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:36 AM
Response to Original message
25. Greenspan is always portrayed as some economic genius
But hasn't he resided over two recession and two stock market meltdowns? And the only reason his record isn't worse is because of the skill of the Clinton economic team.
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EVDebs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 03:03 PM
Response to Reply #25
35. The "Long Term Capital Management" scandal took place because of
Greenspan's long term capital mis-management ! The whole un-regulated capital markets ensure huge swings in the business cycle, and even the Fed can't control that...Greenspan knows better but allows this anyway. Shame on him.
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unblock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:45 AM
Response to Original message
26. this is the idiot who worried about paying off "too much debt"
and having money left over!

seriously, this guy testified before congress that we would have so much surplus that we would pay off the debt and then be forced to have the government do something like invest the extra money in the stock market!

:wtf:
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scarletlib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 10:46 AM
Response to Original message
27. it's about time
the bastard is a traitor to the american people and the nation as a whole. This sob is willing to let the rich take this country to the cleaners to support his corrupt ideology. His job is to work for the financial security of the nation and not the f**king rich.

He knows a big first step in reducing deficits is to take back the tax cuts for the rich, but he'd rather see the country go under than do that.

I have nothing but CONTEMPT for this bastard.
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Yavin4 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 11:54 AM
Response to Original message
31. This Pisses Me Off
I was saying this about Greenie long before these wannabes showed up, but do I get any credit? Do I get some recognition? NOOOOOOOOO!

I've been posting and saying this for years. From his rate hikes in 1999-2000 to his artficial suppression of rates in 2002 and 2003. This man has done everything to help this idiot Bush. However, the world financial community is getting pissed at him because U.S. interest rates are too low compared to the debt that we owe. IOW, the world is loaning us money, but we're paying them back with nothing.
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DebJ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 12:04 PM
Response to Original message
32. Wasn't he supposed to step down this year or next? Yesterday
would have been too late..
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barb162 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 12:18 PM
Response to Original message
33. Greenspan just really needs to step down; he did act
independently years ago but ever since Bush came in, he marches lock-step with whatever crazy idea Bush wants.
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Catt03 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 01:26 PM
Response to Original message
34. Got this reference from another blog
This is what he said in 1999 when Clinton proposed private accounts

Greenspan, reflecting a wave of criticism that surfaced yesterday, contended that by pouring billions of dollars in Social Security reserves into Wall Street for the first time, the government inevitably would mingle politics into its investment decisions and would not produce the kind of returns that the administration hopes for. He also raised concerns about whether the government would end up in the business of picking which American companies are worth investing in.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/security/stories/retire012199.htm

So now it is okay to move into private accounts?

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Barkley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-05-05 03:27 PM
Response to Original message
36. I wonder when Al's going to endorse missile defense?
Edited on Sat Mar-05-05 03:28 PM by Barkley
Al was indeed troubled about 'zeroing out' the debt in the late 1990s.

Q: If the gov't kept running surpluses, then what would thet do with the
extra tax revenues after paying off all its debts.

A: Expand its role in providing education, roads, health etc:
That makes sense to us DUers but not for Repugs.

Al increased the interest rates in 2000 -- that hurt Gore.

Of course in a recession, the surplus will disappear and Bush economic tax cuts insurse that we have red ink as far as the eye can see.

The recession stared in March 2001 the Fed cut interest rates 11 times in 2001-2002.

This helped housing and autosales but long-term interest rates didn't
fall as much. Accordingly, business investments didn't take off.

The stock market didn't rally.

The dollar's value fell, but it didn't bring about a positive change in our trade deficit.

Monetary policy is becoming more controversial.
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