Letters to the Editor
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Greenspan the Great Amoralist
The Greenspan legacy was to spread economic risk as uniformly as possible. You might think his role as Fed Chief would be to take a neutral risk adverse approach to the economy, but all economists have a sworn allegiance to growth, and the enemy of economic growth is savings.
Under Greenspan the economists discovered an untapped source of savings, home equity. To further demostrate their turpitude, these scam artists refused to acknowledge what they were doing. Home equity has never been counted as personal savings, while it was being plundered as a source of consumer spending, and new wealth.
It matters little if we beleive these loans were the equivalent of selling fire water to the Indians, what was happening away from the scene, is what matters. Fixed income investors were being robbed of their right to make a decent income from their savings. Greenspan punished savers, and rewarded borrowers, especially those with no collateral, and no prospects. The right to make a moral decision about your money, was circumvented by the Great Amoralist, Alan Greenspan. Borrowers are bailed out by savers. The raid on equity will continue, probably at the hands of hedge fund managers, who now own America's land, and the homes which are built upon them. A recent quote suggests that there is grave concern that another great transfer of land ownership will occur, as it did during the first Great Depression. Certainly they have set the stage, and washed their hands of the matter, more beautifully than a hundred Pontius Pilates.
When this economy collapses the very bonds which were purchased by people who needed safe investments, will probably default. There is nothing kind that can be said of his tenure.