How different things would look if Greenspan had not flooded the economy with cash, and then lowered interest rates, after the dot-com bubble burst, and then after 9/11.

Both those events would likely have had short-term negative effects on our economy, and slightly higher interest rates, coupled with less liquidity, might have meant slower growth in equities, and, more crucially, in the housing market. It would also have meant tighter loan standards, since there would have been less cash to play with.

And let's not forget, less inflation...less currency, less currency-corrosion, yes?

Human desire for the quick fix, for short-term gratification (and I'm as guilty as the next person in that department) is writ large in the actions of the Fed over the last 7 years...flooding the system with huge amounts of cash to bail out people who should NOT be bailed out is just more of the same.

We'd have all been better off with slower, steadier growth..not to mention the money we would not have borrowed as a nation had we not gone to war in Iraq.

The repeated elections of GW Bush, and Greenspan bending over for his buddies in the markets, have together contributed to what may yet be a genuine Waterloo for our financial system down the road.

I contemplate how things *might* have been, and I just want to weep.

sure, interest rates for mortagages would have been higher..but guess what? Buyers would have been rock-solid, and prices would not have risen so high, without the liquidity, that started when Greenspan decided to bail out all those dot-com speculators.

I'll never be convinced that lowering interest rates in the wake of the bubble and 9/11, was a good idea. All it did was allow the sharks to have a very large party. Now we're all potential prey as the blood clears.