Comments on: A Silver Lining

By: Peter Klein

Peter Klein — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:34:50 +0000

Steve, the point about Greenspan isn’t that he should have somehow “popped” the bubble, but that he shouldn’t have created it in the first place with a ridiculously easy monetary policy.

By: spostrel

spostrel — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:00:16 +0000

Methinks Greenspan’s long tenure with high growth, low unemployment, and low inflation are not going to be forgotten by history. I certainly don’t want the Fed going around deciding when asset prices are “too high” and then raising interest rates to “pop the bubble.” Greenspan’s unwillingness to do this strikes me as a plus–interest rates and money supply are the wrong tool to regulate asset values, if indeed we want govenment officials regulating them in the first place.

By: pj

pj — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:13:06 +0000

Bernanke’s reputation is already shot. His first move at the beginning of a deep recession was to give away the Fed’s balance sheet to bankrupt Wall Streeters, trading $2 trillion in Treasuries for “toxic trash” worth ten cents on the dollar. Now he has no policy tools, except massive inflation, to address the recession. He allowed Wall Street sharpsters to cheat him, at Paulson’s urging, and now he’s trying to keep his idiocy a secret, even as Bloomberg sues for openness. He was a man of one idea — prevent the Great Depression by maintaining the solvency of financial institutions — and this made him history’s biggest sucker for today’s most greedy con artists. His reputation will live in the con victim hall of fame.