Greenspan’s Reputation in Ruins—Deservedly So

By Amitabh Pal, October 9, 2008 So there is justice in the world. The biggest bubble blown in the recent past—Alan Greenspan’s reputation—has finally been pricked. Greenspan’s judgment was long thought to be infallible. Along with the markets, however, his standing has crumbled, too. Greenspan’s reputation had already taken a bit of a hit in recent years when he acted as a partisan hack and supported both Bush’s tax cuts and GW’s Social Security privatization plan. But the recent financial crisis has created doubts about something larger—his entire term as the Fed chair. The latest blow to his legacy is a front-page article in the New York Times on October 9. It notes that from the start of his chairmanship, Greenspan repeated just one mantra: deregulation, more deregulation and even more deregulation. Not... [read full story]