Have we been fair to Alan Greenspan? Is he the one to blame for the deterioration of our economy? Just few years ago Greenspan's reputation as a financial genius seemed unanimously agreed. Most economists were in total admiration and praised him as "The Maestro", the biggest mind of our times...

What went wrong?... or better say: What did he do so wrong and what is his crucial role in the ongoing global credit crisis.

Alan Greenspan is undoubtedly a complex and interesting man in his intellectual capacity. Long before becoming Federal Reserve chairman, Greenspan played the clarinet and shared Ayn Rand's philosophy... Lots of young intellectuals read and shared her politically incorrect hymn to selfishness. It was the 20th. century trend to politically incorrect view on individualism and laissez-faire -Let do ("allow to do")- capitalism. He never seems to move away from that. He later gave up on music as a profession, studied economics and became one of the most influential man of the century.

But recently his "statue" was shaken and was badly treated by the House Committee of Government Oversight and Reform. Under the enormous pressure he found himself in no other defense but to admit that he'd make some important mistakes... How important?... As per his own admission: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,"

For many observers Alan Greenspan's legacy will be his contribution to one of the biggest financial disasters in American history. Fair?

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This is a comment I could not help but publish here into this post!!!

Aloha Arina,

by Kimo Stowell (Home Staging & Interiors JDS Consulting)

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Greenspan and his wife Adrea Mitchell when I lived in DC a few years back. They were guests of an acquaintance of mine and it just happened to be one of those random moments when fate crosses your path with someone you would have never have expected to meet. As fate would have it a secret service agent moments later whisked him away under the fecund call of GW Bush. I thought to myself, poor fellow he hadn't even a moment to eat dinner and off he was at the disposal of the President.

The impression that I received from this brief encounter was that here is a man who suffers from intense melancholia. His demeanor was heavy and somber as if his conscience had squished his soul down to the souls of his shoes.

Fed Bankers are an obsessive lot, entrusted with keeping our ignanomous Fractional Reserve banking system greased and cranking. He and all Fed Chairs since the Wilson administration have had one and only one directive: Keep Americans in debt at any and all costs! Because Bankers Make Money from our indebtedness. Trillions of dollars worth of unchecked profits go into the pockets of a very select group of bankers who are the real power behind the politics of this country.

The more the fed deregulates our banking system the more money they make off the backs of Americans, who are in essence slaves to debt and the Banks that hold that debt. Greenspan was only doing the job he was entrusted to do. Unfortunately for us that job was to orchestrate the greatest financial collapse this country has seen since the Great Depression, why because money in this country is made from debt. 

Have you noticed that virtually all the Investment Bank CEO's got paid enormous sums of money even while they drove their businesses into the ground. So what if you bankrupted your company when your "forced" into retirement with billions of dollars in your severance package.

Have you noticed that the bail out funds have been used to pay for lavish parties, corporate retreats, and end of year bonuses for the top executives accounting for over $70 billion of the total bailout. Why are their "top" producers getting paid bonuses when all they produced was the failure of the their company? It's because these amoral bankers made trillions for the cadre of banking elite that run this country.

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