David Corn has a really interesting article over at Mother Jones about Alan Greenspan's testimony before Congress last week. I don't think it got enough attention from the media. The economic Godfather of the past 40 years was wrong. Majorly wrong. And, he admitted it. As bad as the news is, at least it is refreshing to hear a decision-maker take some of the blame. Anyway, here's a quote from the article for ya:With members of the House oversight and government reform committee blasting Greenspan for his past decisions that helped pave the way for the current financial crisis, he acknowledged that his libertarian view of markets and the financial world had not worked out so well. "You know," he told the legislators, "that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." While Greenspan did defend his various decisions, he admitted that his faith in the ability of free and loosely-regulated markets to produce the best outcomes had been shaken: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
In other words, whoops—there goes decades of Ayn Rand down the drain.
I couldn't resist using the title "Alan Shrugged" from Mother Jones.... came to find out it's also the title for Jerome Tuccille's pdf novel.