Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right itself after all.

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Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right itse... - 10/24/2008 8:22:01 PM

giveeverything

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With all this talk about "socialism" and what-not, I thought it might be interesting to see that Allen Greenspan says that his "free market" philosophy might be flawed. He says in fact that he was wrong on his views of regulation. You can see the NY Times article here (if you're a NY Times hater, you can see similar articles in every other newspaper) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?bl&ex=1224993600&en=da694ed4921c5e8b&ei=5087%0A .

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/24/2008 8:29:42 PM

pahunkboy

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who asked him?

shouldnt he be in a home by now?

besides, he is "shocked". gag me

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/24/2008 8:51:36 PM

giveeverything

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quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

who asked him?

Um, I think the committee he was speaking in front of asked him. Plus, he only retired three years ago, so his opinion seems relivant.

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/24/2008 8:58:32 PM

pahunkboy

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they got the wrong guy.

follow the money. follow the golden parachutes.

what possibly can Greenspan do to help? the horse is out of the barn.

we could go back to the gold standard. but we wont. not before sinking into depression, and civil unrest, if even then

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/24/2008 10:32:48 PM

BitaTruble

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Yeah, I watched those hearings yesterday. He's the only one who has actually admitted that he made a mistake .. at least from all the Senate hearings that I've watched. He went up a slight notch in my esteem by taking some responsibility. He was pretty blasted at some points during the hearings, probably more than he deserved. He looked really old, too.. and tired. I hope he looks in the mirror in the morning and realizes he has done something that the rest of those yahoo's have failed to do .. he man'd up and he doesn't need to cringe at his reflection like so many of the rest of them should .. but probably won't.

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 2:56:30 AM

seeksfemslave

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There is no doubt at all that a really "free" market would eventually self correct.
The problem is the injustice involved.

The innocent would lose their pensions, savings and jobs with small businesses collapsing like nine pins
Those in the know would have bailed out long ago. How they would protect their ill gotten gains I do not know.

Free markets are a figment of an economically conservative imagination anyway.
Were that not the case, as an example, automobiles would be much cheaper than they are or there would be fewer manufacturers world wide.

K Galbraith told me that !

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 3:05:48 AM

meatcleaver

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Greenberg's admiting of mistakes is being disingenuous, he says his free market philosophy 'might' be flawed. IT WAS FLAWED!. He assumed that bankers and financiers would overcome their greed and regulate themselves in their own best interest. WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE BANKERS AND FINANCIERS CAN OVERCOME THEIR GREED? Lenin said a hundred years ago, a capitalist will sell you the rope with which you will hang them with. All the evidence since then has proved him right. Any high school pupil who has studied a modicum of economic and social history could have told the politicians, bankers and financiers need regulating for the good of the economy and the benefit of everyone.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 10/25/2008 3:07:51 AM >

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 4:50:31 AM

SilverMark

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At one time when the economy was riding high Greenspan was one of the most admired men in America. He seems battered and for once unsure of himself.
Amazing! and deeply dis heartening, I honestly believed he was the one that was smarter than the rest of us. He never seemed to have an axe to grind or an ulterior motive. Makes me wonder about our system and exactly what it will take to fix it or maybe if it is fixable?

< Message edited by SilverMark -- 10/25/2008 4:51:28 AM >

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 7:18:22 AM

pahunkboy

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send him to the home already.   he is another who uses the intelectual masterbation technigue, a wordy homily of supposition, double talk and inuendo.

"beyond shocked" is when you are car jacked.   not when you failed to return to the gold standard and rolled out exponential growth of debt as money- which can never ever be satisfied with real labor, or material for the amount of "money" there not is on earth.

on the other hand.... we are no longer irrational exhuberant... so that lecture has sunk in.   glunk.

time to empty the prisons of any guys that robbed banks.   they were unfairly convicted.

< Message edited by pahunkboy -- 10/25/2008 7:20:08 AM >

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 8:06:25 AM

meatcleaver

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quote:

ORIGINAL: SilverMark

Amazing! and deeply dis heartening, I honestly believed he was the one that was smarter than the rest of us. He never seemed to have an axe to grind or an ulterior motive. Makes me wonder about our system and exactly what it will take to fix it or maybe if it is fixable?

I heard him on a BBC interview some time ago and he came across as a thoughtful, unassuming man and rather charming. I think as a person he is as decent as you can get but I think he was deeply flawed thinking (and I'm making an assumption here) that all other people have or care to have, his level of integrity.

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 9:15:19 AM

UncleNasty

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I haven't yet read the article.

But I do want to point out a couple of things.

In the mid 60's Greenspan published an essay regarding the imperative that we stay on the gold standard. He changed his tune once he became entrenched in the money trust.

http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/greenspan.html

And, importantly, this current debacle is not really an answer as to whether the free market works or not. We've never had a free market. We've only been told we have a free market by those who benefit from the illusion of one. Regulations frequently benefit a few at the expense of the many regardless of the spin that is attached A free market would have competing currencies for starters, and that by itself would radically alter the landscape. There would also be no corporate welfare. Compare what is given to energy and big oil in the form of subsidies to what is given to people in the form of subsidies. How about farm subsidies? The list of "bailouts" our government has engaged in is long. This is far from the first time. Amtrack? Chrysler? The steel industry in the early days of the current administration?

There was a lot of subsidizing of people and industry even during the westward expansion of the 19th century. the railway across the continent, and rail expansion in general, was highly subsidized. People moving west were given large land grants. Subsidizing doesn't always take the form of direct "gifts" of money, or fiat currency. Stephanie Coontz wrote a book titled "The way we never were" that goes into detail about the myths of our "rugged individual" society. She blows some other cultural myths out of the water too, but those are for another post.

In a free market institutions that engaged in poor/dangerous/unethical business practices would simply fail. Those that engaged in sound practices would survive and thrive. Individuals requiring services would make choices based on those with a record of unassisted survival and would continue patronizing those with sound practices. In theory anyway. Because we've never had a true free market we don't really know what it would be like.

Uncle Nasty

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 10:53:53 AM

meatcleaver

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quote:

ORIGINAL: UncleNasty

In a free market institutions that engaged in poor/dangerous/unethical business practices would simply fail. Those that engaged in sound practices would survive and thrive. Individuals requiring services would make choices based on those with a record of unassisted survival and would continue patronizing those with sound practices. In theory anyway. Because we've never had a true free market we don't really know what it would be like.

Uncle Nasty

I agree with most of what you said but not the part about poor/dangerous/unethical business practices would cause intitutions to fail. There is no evidence that free markets are self regulating. One of the reasons countries moved away from laisez faire capitalism was because it tended to cause revolutions. Apart from that, the public filth, lack of sanitation and desease it caused, infected and killed the rich and powerful as much as the poor which made them realize if they didn't regulate the markets and control rampant greed, they too suffer.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 10/25/2008 10:54:49 AM >

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RE: Greenspan says maybe the free market doesn't right ... - 10/25/2008 11:51:34 AM

philosophy

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....as individuals we regulate ourselves, inside the framework of the society in which we live. When an individual fails to engage with that process the result is sociopathy. Limits are important. Whether self imposed or projected from without. Full blown, unregulated capitalism's weakness is that there is nothing in place to prevent the equivilant of corporate sociopathy.

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