OpEdNews
Alan Greenspan's performance before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was a real Oscar winner. At no time, was the ex-Fed chairman in trouble, and he was able to showcase the full repertoire of fake emotions for which he is renowned. He was alternately condescending, professorial, combative, engaging, and acerbic. It was vintage Greenspan from start to finish; the tedious jabber, the crusty rejoinders, the endless excuse-making. At 80, Maestro still hasn't lost his touch. No one laid a glove on him, which is precisely the problem.
It's galling that, after everything that's taken place, Greenspan is still treated like royalty; still given a platform so he can run-circles around his critics and make them look like fools. That's not what the public wanted, another playful sparring-match with Chairman Flim-flam. They wanted to see him grilled, interrogated, badgered, threatened and humiliated. And they want to see some trifling sign of remorse for the ruin he's brought on the country. But there was no remorse; no restless squirming, no flickering look of self-doubt, no sudden outburst of regret. Nothing at all. Just the brazen buck-passing of a self-admiring old man trying to pluck his reputation from the ashheap.
No one person is more responsible for the financial crisis than Alan Greenspan. He can say whatever he likes, but the 8.5 million people who spend their days shuffling in unemployment lines, have him to thank. And that's doubly true for the 300,000 families who lose their homes every month or the millions of people now scrimping by on food stamps. They can blame Maestro for the mess they're in.
In his testimony, Greenspan blamed subprime securitization, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the fall of the Berlin Wall, too much saving in China etc. etc. etc. Everyone is to blame; everyone except Greenspan that is, the Teflon Fed chief.
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