Tuesday, March 18, 2008

'Oh, Magoo, You’ve Done It Again!' (Frederick Sheehan)

Frederick Sheehan on the evils of inflation and Greenspan's role in bringing about the current recession:

Alan Greenspan’s instinct for self-exculpation reached new heights in the March 17, 2008, Financial Times. In "We Will Never Have a Perfect Model for Risk," he writes a model essay intended to eliminate risk – the risk he might be held accountable for the imploding banking system that he failed to regulate. Nowhere would the reader glean the author had a hand in the topics he speaks of with such authority. Nowhere would the reader detect a hint that the practices and models the former Federal Reserve chairman now condemns were once either blessed or ignored under his authority.

We read in the FT: "The crisis will leave many casualties. Particularly hard hit will be much of today’s financial risk-valuation system, significant parts of which failed under stress. Those of us who look to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder equity have to be in a state of shocked disbelief."

His shock and disbelief should be directed to his own failure.

Read the rest

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