You and everyone you know is stupid.

Why doesn't anyone care about bringing to justice the people responsible for the credit crisis?

Look what the derivatives market has done.

People were lured into subprime mortgages, criminals gambled with peoples lives, and many have been ruined.

And maybe 5% of people are paying attention to this stuff.


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/2/american_casino_doc_investigates_roots_of

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Dr. Greenspan, you had an ideology, you had a belief, that free, competitive—and this is your statement: “I do have an ideology. My judgment is that free, competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies. We’ve tried regulation. None meaningfully worked.” That was your quote.

You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others. And now our whole economy is paying its price. Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?

ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, remember that what an ideology is is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to. To exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not. And what I’m saying to you is, yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is, but I’ve been very distressed by that fact.

But if I may, may I just finish an answer to the question previously posed?

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: You found a flaw in the reality—

ALAN GREENSPAN: Flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right. It was not working.

ALAN GREENSPAN: That it had a—precisely. No, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I’ve been going for forty years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.


The Federal Reserve was a poor substitute for deregulation. Since the Fed had monopoly privileges in issuing currency, it allowed them to cause unchecked inflation.

By 1919, the US Inflation rate jumped to nearly 20%. Since the Federal Reserve had a monopoly on currency, it also had to make sure that there was enough currency in the market to avert a crisis. Soon after, two of the worst monetary contractions in history, the first in 1921, and the second between 1929 and 1933 took place.