Monday, October 27, 2008

Greenspan learns, years later that Ayn Rand was just leading him on



So that's why she just let him get the coffee.

5 comments:

Rob Diego said...

This crisis was caused by socialist ideas...the idea that government could redistribute wealth on behalf of the poor. As usual, socialism does not work and it did not work in this situation. The crisis was caused by quasi-governmental institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and socialist politicians who loosened lending standards. It had nothing to do with the free market because the financial services industry has not been a free market for decades. Greenspan is delusional. Ayn Rand is vindicated.

geebee said...

Mr Diego, are you delusional? Extremely briefly, the people at the top of all of all of the financial institutions took all the profit and left, us, the Americaqn taxpayer holding the bag. Please explain why, for example, loosing lending standards wasn't a perfectly fine randian thing to do. Also please include the 2001? bill written by Phil Gramm that did away with regulations for derivitaves, which got us into this mess, because through the use of them, lending institutions thought they understand how to handle risk better, which directly led to those looser lending standards.

kerfuffler said...

Many people (Republicans) are fond of blaming the financial crisis on the initial cause, the risky mortgages, rather than the proximate cause, the derivatives market. Consider this metaphor:
If someone uses a magnifying glass and focuses the sun's light to start a forest fire, what caused the forest fire, the sun, or the jerk with the magnifying glass?

The derivatives market greatly amplified the damage caused initially by bad mortgages.

djinn said...

The remark, above, ostensibly from GeeBee was really from me, Djinn. All invective, complaints about grammar, and other comments should be directed toward me, the little rat,not geebee the innocent monkey.

Steve said...

Awww, but I like the monkey!

Rob is like most of the Republicans these days, chasing his own tail! The derivatives market caused this whole mess, which was allowed to exist for the first time in 100 years thanks to the Republican bill passed by Congress and endorsed by Greenspan. I actually like Greenspan and respect him greatly, an awesome autobiography BTW, even if we disagree on an ideological basis, but he was wrong. He even admits that! Something Rob and most other free market folks seem unable to do.