12 April 2010

"He Did It"

From Frank Rich's column in Sunday's NY Times:
"I was right 70 percent of the time, but I was wrong 30 percent of the time," said Alan Greenspan as he testified last week on Capitol Hill. Greenspan — a k a the Oracle during his 18-year-plus tenure as Fed chairman — could not have more vividly illustrated how and why geniuses of his stature were out to lunch while Wall Street imploded. No doubt he applied his full brain power to that 70-30 calculation. But the big picture eludes him. If the captain of the Titanic followed the Greenspan model, he could claim he was on course at least 70 percent of the time too.
The entire 27 year period from 1981 to 2008 was an illusion built on a shaky philosophy of massive debt and balance sheet trickery. Even I, a complete imbecile on matters of economics, thought our government's economic experts (in both parties) were steering us toward the path of complete ruin.

And here we are.

And there they are. Still.

Mr. President, it's time to shake things up.