How Alan Greenspan Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the State
[align=left] How Alan Greenspan Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the State [/align]
Roderick T. Long
Lew Rockwell.com
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
[align=left] Alan Greenspan started off his political career, under Ayn Rand??s influence, as a fairly consistent Austro-libertarian, penning articles defending the gold standard and condemning antitrust law. Nowadays, of course, while he still calls himself a libertarian, few would accuse him of excessive purity in that regard. There??s been much speculation as to the when and why of his transition. For what it??s worth, in Greenspan??s recent memoir The Age of Turbulence (which I??ve looked through so you don??t have to ?? though I haven??t read the whole thing), we hear the story in his own words. [/align]
There??s not much libertarian meat in the book; the only libertarian or libertarian-ish figures to appear in the index (apart from a brief ?? and mistaken ?? reference to Herbert Spencer (pp. 278??79) as ??a follower of Charles Darwin?) are Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand. (Well, we also learn that (p. 323) former Putin advisor Andrei Illarionov is an Ayn Rand fan.) Greenspan??s favourite economist is clearly Friedman, on whom he lavishes praise throughout; his favourite political figures, likewise adulated, are Reagan and Thatcher. Despite his early Austrianism, there??s no reference in the index to Mises, Hayek, or any other Austrian economist. (Okay, Benjamin Anderson shows up in a footnote; and Fritz Machlup is mentioned on p. 497 although he??s not in the index.) Greenspan refers (pp. 97??98) to his own early libertarian essay on antitrust, written for The Objectivist ?? but only in connection with his using it as material for winning Andrea Mitchell??s affections. (I am not making this up!)
(Article continues below)
Greenspan??s libertarian odyssey begins with his conversion to Ayn Rand??s Objectivism. When he first encountered Rand, he was an adherent of logical positivism, which he describes this way: Pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, it is a school of thought whose main tenet is that knowledge can only be gained from facts and numbers ?? it heavily emphasizes rigorous proof. There are no moral absolutes: values and ethics and the way people behave are reflections of culture and are not subject to logic. (p. 39)
The reference to Wittgenstein is an error; the positivists were inspired by a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein??s writings, but it was a deeply mistaken interpretation that Wittgenstein himself never endorsed. (And who doesn??t think that ??knowledge can only be gained from facts??) But never mind. In any case, his introduction to Rand and her salon soon chipped away at his enthusiasm for positivism. The following story is a familiar one in Randian circles, but this is (I believe) the first time we??ve heard it from Greenspan??s own perspective: After listening for a few evenings, I showed my logical-positivist colors. I don??t recall the topic being discussed, but something prompted me to postulate that there are no moral absolutes. Ayn Rand pounced. ??How can that be??
??Because to be truly rational, you can??t hold a conviction without significant empirical evidence,?
??How can that be?? she asked again. ??Don??t you exist??
??I ... can??t be sure,? I admitted.
??Would you be willing to say you don??t exist??
??I might....?
??And by the way, who is making that argument??
Maybe you had to be there ?? or, more to the point, maybe you had to be a twenty-six-year-old math junkie ?? but this exchange really shook me. I saw she was quite effectively demonstrating the self-contradictory nature of my position. ... It dawned on me that a lot of what I??d decided was true was probably just plain wrong. Of course, I was too stubborn and embarrassed to concede immediately; instead, I clammed up.
This exchange suggests that the young Greenspan was not especially well-versed in the logical positivism he espoused, since the positivists themselves did cover this sort of objection in their writings and could have provided, if not unassailable answers, at least better than no answer. Rand came away from that evening with a nickname for me. She dubbed me ??the Undertaker,? partly because my manner was so serious and partly because I always wore a dark suit and tie. Over the next few weeks, I later learned, she would ask people, ??Well, has the Undertaker decided he exists yet?? (p. 41)
Full article here.
How Alan Greenspan Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the State
Bernanke Faces Scrutiny in Congress Over Bear Stearns Buyout Craig Torres
Bloomberg
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
[align=left] Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has pushed aside central-banking tradition, scooping up $29 billion of assets from Bear Stearns Cos. and backstopping bond dealers. Congress wants to know where he draws the line. [/align]
Bernanke testifies before two congressional panels today and tomorrow. The hearings mark his first trips to Capitol Hill since the Fed's March 16 intervention to avert the bankruptcy of Bear, an extension of credit to a non-bank corporation that was unprecedented since the Great Depression.
While lawmakers praise the central bank and the Treasury Department for staving off a U.S. financial collapse, they question the propriety of subsidies to Wall Street risk-takers as hundreds of thousands of Americans lose their homes to foreclosure.
(Article continues below)
``We want to know about precedent,'' said Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. If the central bank is prepared to repeat the Bear Stearns example, ``it sends a very dangerous signal,'' he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday.
``People are willing to take chances if they think that the federal government is going to step in and bail them out all the time,'' Grassley added.
Bernanke, 54, will address the economy at the Joint Economic Committee today at 9:30 a.m. He appears tomorrow at the Senate Banking Committee to discuss markets and the Fed's role in JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s purchase of Bear Stearns.
Ditching Tradition
As credit markets seized up, the Fed gave all 20 primary dealers in U.S. government bonds the same access to discount- window loans. Until then, those loans had been reserved for banks. The central bank now auctions as much as $100 billion in funds to lenders a month, and has cut the cost on direct loans to just a quarter-point above the overnight rate between banks.
Lawmakers have welcomed the interest-rate reductions, including 2 percentage points of cuts since the year began, the fastest easing of monetary policy in two decades. The benchmark rate is now 2.25 percent, down from 5.25 percent in September.
At the same time, legislators have begun scrutinizing the central bank's aid to Bear Stearns, which was the biggest underwriter of mortgage-backed bonds. The market for the securities was throttled by a surge in delinquencies on subprime loans, or credit given to people with poor or incomplete credit histories. Foreclosures jumped when interest rates on the loans climbed after an initial period of lower rates.
Full article here.
How Alan Greenspan Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the State
IMF Says U.S. In Worst Economic Crisis Since Great Depression Washington-based lender says global recession possible Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
[align=left]The International Monetary fund has slashed odds that the world is facing a financial recession and admits that the U.S. is in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, as the body revised forecasts for economic slowdown.
The Washington-based lender gave a 25 percent chance that global growth will drop to 3 percent or less this year or next, a figure described s equivalent to a global recession.
The forecast marks the third time the IMF has reduced projections for economic growth since July, with chances of a harsh global recession becoming increasingly likely.
"The financial shock that originated in the U.S. subprime mortgage market in August 2007 has spread quickly, and in unanticipated ways, to inflict extensive damage on markets and institutions at the core of the financial system,'' the statement said. "The global expansion is losing momentum in the face of what has become the largest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression,'' states the report.
(Article continues below)
"The IMF's forecast is now below the world economy's longer- term trend so there is certainly some significance in what it is now seeing,'' said Andy Cates, a global economist at UBS in London told Bloomberg News. "The world economy is slowing quite considerably and will be very different from what we've become accustomed to.''
Roger Nightingale, global strategist at Pointon York Ltd. in London, said the IMF were behind the curve in only just beginning to discuss what is already unfolding.
"The IMF only really forecasts these things after they've begun,'' he told Bloomberg Television. "You've got America, Italy and several other European countries and one or two Asian countries, actually in or very close to recession, and yet the IMF just now begins to talk about this phenomenon." [/align]
[align=center]] [/align]
[align=left]The IMF's prediction follows a report by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington, which suggests that "In the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s."
A story about the dismal forecast by the London Independent entitled, USA 2008: The Great Depression, describes how getting food on the table "is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet."[/align]
How Alan Greenspan Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the State
wow! everything is a conspiracy to neocons i guess...
How Alan Greenspan Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the State
Quote:
Originally Posted by pisshead
wow! everything is a conspiracy to neocons i guess...
Tell ya what pisshead, since you want to be so "nice" about this, I will also in the future. I've been moving your info wars/prison planet b.s. over to the PROPER forum for long enough. If you post this in politics OR any other forum again....it's much, much easier just to delete instead of moving.
I was checking out another forum site that promotes "free speech" and the sticky in politics states exactly that. "Conspiracy threads in politics will be deleted."
Thank you so kindly for making my moderating job easier.:thumbsup:
Have a good one!:jointsmile:
