Greenspan: I am not infallible

Posted By Blake Hounshell Thursday, October 23, 2008 - 5:51 PM Share

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan admitted today that he is not, in fact, infallible.

Asked at a congressional hearing if the financial crisis had led him to discover any flaws in his free-market thinking, Greenspan confessed to being "partially" wrong about regulating derivatives. He added:

We cannot expect perfection in any area where forecasting is required... We have to do our best but not expect infallibility or omniscience.''

For what it's worth, if you were reading Foreign Policy in January 2005 or even as recently as April 2008, you already knew that Greenspan was not all that.

Photo: TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

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DEC

10:08 PM ET

October 23, 2008

It's the Economy Stupid

He knew about the flaw when Bill was in office. Now, we're paying for Obama law suits over mortgage terms. Dems are just going to have America pay for what they do to get where they are and Americans will just keep on buying them. The flaw is this is how dems got into office and everyone can continue to pay, that's okay with dems. Obama is enjoying his payment more than Bill did; Bill did admit the food crisis was generated by the same type of lobby, but he wanted to feed the world and end all poverty. His foreign aid pals got hundreds of billions, trillions over new five year emergency sustainable budgets; no one will say he ruined the economy with free loans(grants)and cash because it was Obama and Biden.

So, foreign aid will go down just like our economy, but what caused it - was it the 'lobby'(the power of the oppressed) or dems putting the economy down just before an election like Bill's?

DOR

12:36 AM ET

October 24, 2008

Huh?

Foreign aid getting trillions? Foreign aid is a fraction of one percent of the annual U.S. government budget (though many people are mistaken and believe the figure to be closer to 20%). And if the democrats were so powerful as to be able to manipulate the entire economy to put themselves into office you'd think they'd just skip the intervening step and apply their sorcery to winning the election itself. By the way, Greenspan was made chairman of the fed under Ronald Reagan, so your sly shift from criticizing Greenspn to criticizing Bill Clinton and the entire democratic party (and I'm not sure Obama and Clinton are best buds, btw) is misplaced. Basically, I'm lost. You lost me.

PAUL GAUTHIER

11:07 PM ET

October 23, 2008

FED

One of the flaw was the interest rate fixed by the FED.

Greenspan blame the free-market instead of blaming his failed interventionism at the FED.

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