Alan Greenspan believes in being ‘partially wrong’. He must also, by direct inference, believe in being partially pregnant, not quite guilty, the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause.
Anyone who has the belief that greed can be self-regulating, and that incompetence can’t live in the rarified atmosphere of investment banking exchange houses, should never have been allowed to sit in the chair that Greenspan occupied for far too long. He and he alone is responsible for the “once-in-a-century-credit-tsunami”. What an apt description.Tsunami is a tidal wave created by undersea eathquakes and earthquakes occur because of unstable tectonic shifts in the planet’s crust. A very succinct description indeed, when one considers that on the surface of the global financial marketplace 18 months ago, all appeared calm, but beneath, the very base structure was unstable and about to undergo the most dramatic upheaval.
The difference between our planet and the global economic community is that one is naturally occurring. The other is of our own making. Rather, of the making of those who took their eyes off the ball because other shinier, brighter, prettier baubles were before their eyes. As anyone who’s dressed an Christmas tree will tell you, it’s the shiny, pretty baubles which are the most fragile.
There is no ‘partially wrong’. There is only full and complete mea culpa. The very least Greenspan could do, in lieu of an abject apology to US citizens and those around the world impacted by the credit crisis, is admit he fucked up big time.