Alan Greenspan being fairly candid on current economic trouble

[Demogorgon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Obviously he wants to get away with as little blame as possible, but he is still being fairly honest. I don't particularly want to single him out for blame as he was just part of a whole rotten economic system, but it is interesting that he admits-to an extent-that he pushed for deregulation out of an ideological fervor for free markets and almost blind faith that they would be self regulating. To his credit, he is acknowledging that that was mistaken.

[Dejavu]

Except for the fact that he made money's interest 1% and flooded the market with artificial credit. If this is free market then I'm a socialist. :laugh:

[Die Neue Zeit]

What else did you expect from a Randite like that elderly scum?

[Demogorgon]

What else did you expect from a Randite like that elderly scum?

Even worse to be honest. It is the confession to having made a mistake that interests me. In a moment of candour Greenspan has revealed a real rot in policy making circles.

[Dejavu]

Even worse to be honest. It is the confession to having made a mistake that interests me. In a moment of candour Greenspan has revealed a real rot in policy making circles.

Of course he made the 'mistake.' Though I think it was far more deliberate and not like ' opps , that didn't work out well.' You bought into the rhetoric. "Alan Greenspan spouts free market rhetoric as an excuse for his actions, therefore , we can properly blame free market ideology for the problem." If you stop and think about it you will find that to be basically rubbish. Look at what the man did instead of just buying into his rhetoric about the FM hook, line, and sinker.

[Demogorgon]

Of course he made the 'mistake.' Though I think it was far more deliberate and not like ' opps , that didn't work out well.' You bought into the rhetoric. "Alan Greenspan spouts free market rhetoric as an excuse for his actions, therefore , we can properly blame free market ideology for the problem." If you stop and think about it you will find that to be basically rubbish. Look at what the man did instead of just buying into his rhetoric about the FM hook, line, and sinker.
Yes I do look at what he did and what he did was pursue a free market orientated monetary policy. I know you think the free market only exists without any state at all, but that is not the way everybody else uses the term.

[Dejavu]

Monopolizing the money supply and forming a banking cartel through the enforcement of the state isn't a free market practice. Thats like saying Stalin's USSR was in line with Marx's vision of communism.

In fact, the Fed exists to 'alleviate' market corrections. If right-wingers truly represent the core ideology of free markets then why propose a bailout? Why not just let the market make the correction to the mismanagement of money created by the cartel+state? Think about it, Alan Greenspan's job was to try to sidestep the free market , not help it along.

A free market means exactly that, a non centralized banking system. Just because politico Leftists and Rightists ascribe the term 'free market' to mean economic fascism doesn't make it true. Otherwise, laissez fair capitalism and state capitalism would have no meaning because if they are the same thing they can't be compared to each other. That would be sort of silly.

[Dejavu]

An honest Marxist , with an iota of economic knowledge, would admit that whats going on today isn't the free market , we abandoned the majority of FM principles almost a century ago. The honest Marxist wouldn't call this FM even though he would still criticize the FM as another bad system, but not this system.

[Dejavu]

Alan Greenspan set the interest rate of money to 1%, something unprecedented in recent history and totally contrary to FM principles. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that bubbles were the result of such a ridiculous policy.

The interest rate is nothing more than the price of money. It is the common denominator in all markets. When you artificially fix the interest rate , you're arbitrarily fixing the price of money , i.e. price controls. This is actually a species of 'socialist economics.' The FM dictates that all prices of all commodities , including that of money , are to be set by the laws of supply and demand, not somebody's whim backed up with force.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

But it's not real capitalism.

[RGacky3]

Dejavu, the problem is that because we arn't on the gold standard anymore, the price of money is almost completely manufactured, there is nothing really to bacak it up. What Alan Greenspan was doing was tyring to pump the market with low intrest cash, so that it could flow throughout the market. Nower days the whole economic system is ultimately artificial, and because of that, without the Feds banks have almost no guanrantee that any value will hold.

Thats the problem with the money market, its ultimately like buying stocks for a company that does'nt exist, theres nothing backing it up. Thats why the Feds exist, to try and control it.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Gold has its own problems. I think even Hayek admitted that a fiat like the Lincoln greenback would be the best system - if it could be controlled.

The other thread Deja Vu made confirms my suspicions: some inflation is good. Obviously in an ideal scenario we have deflating prices and inflating wages - like with computer technology throughout the 80s and 90s. :D

[RGacky3]

The other thread Deja Vu made confirms my suspicions: some inflation is good. Obviously in an ideal scenario we have deflating prices and inflating wages - like with computer technology throughout the 80s and 90s. :D


Thats unsustainable, there is not ideal in Capitalism, Capitalism has always been since the depression trying to pump up a floatee with a hole in the bottom, it may look good on the outside, but its leaking, and the more you pump it up the bigger the holes going to get. if you stop pumping it the hole won't get bigger but you'll sink, either way your screwed.