Fed maestro hearing sour notes
Praise for former Chairman Alan Greenspan has been muted by critics who blame him for current economic troubles.
By Thomas S. Mulligan
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 9, 2008
NEW YORK — Alan Greenspan retired in January 2006 as one of history's most lauded Federal Reserve Board chairmen, the subject of accolades that stopped just short of deification.
But just as markets have a way of overshooting both on the way up and on the way down, the needle on Greenspan's Fed tenure has swung from adulation to denunciation in a matter of months.
With the economy now sputtering, Greenspan has increasingly been tagged as "Mr. Bubble" -- the ideologue whose loose-money policies and lax regulation are blamed for the continuing real estate collapse, the near-meltdown of the mortgage industry and the toppling of some Wall Street giants.
The 82-year-old economist, once dubbed "the maestro" for guiding the economy during its longest postwar boom, is responding to the backlash with a vigorous defense. In newspaper and television interviews and in Internet forums, Greenspan has accused critics of applying unfair hindsight to problems that no one could have foreseen.
"I have no regrets on any of the Federal Reserve policies that we initiated back then," Greenspan said Tuesday in an interview on CNBC.
(Continued here.)
By Thomas S. Mulligan
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 9, 2008
NEW YORK — Alan Greenspan retired in January 2006 as one of history's most lauded Federal Reserve Board chairmen, the subject of accolades that stopped just short of deification.
But just as markets have a way of overshooting both on the way up and on the way down, the needle on Greenspan's Fed tenure has swung from adulation to denunciation in a matter of months.
With the economy now sputtering, Greenspan has increasingly been tagged as "Mr. Bubble" -- the ideologue whose loose-money policies and lax regulation are blamed for the continuing real estate collapse, the near-meltdown of the mortgage industry and the toppling of some Wall Street giants.
The 82-year-old economist, once dubbed "the maestro" for guiding the economy during its longest postwar boom, is responding to the backlash with a vigorous defense. In newspaper and television interviews and in Internet forums, Greenspan has accused critics of applying unfair hindsight to problems that no one could have foreseen.
"I have no regrets on any of the Federal Reserve policies that we initiated back then," Greenspan said Tuesday in an interview on CNBC.
(Continued here.)
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