Get Uncle Alan His Meds

He's talking crazy again:

The United States has fallen into an "awfully pale recession" and may remain stagnant for the rest of the year, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was quoted on Monday saying.

"We're in a recession," Bloomberg news agency reported Greenspan had said in a television interview. "But this is an awfully pale recession at the moment. The declines in employment have not been as big as you'd expect to see."

Pale? If you call negative GDP growth and skyrocketing prices pale, then ok. As for the employment figures, 1. the unemployment rate doesn't tell the whole story (i.e. it doesn't include people who have been looking for work for over 6 months, those who have given up altogether or those who work part time), and 2. our latest economic boom was really a jobless recovery.

We're in for a bumpy ride. Buckle up and save.

I Didn't Do It!

Uncle Alan says he's innocent:

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has lashed out again at his critics, saying he was being blamed unfairly for the credit crisis and that he had no regrets about decisions he took while at the helm.

In an interview in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Greenspan, who left the Fed in early 2006, says critics are ignoring evidence in his favor and failing to give credit to the thinking behind the Fed's decision to lower rates when he was in charge.

No one could have predicted that encouraging home ownership in such a reckless manner and keeping the interest rate below the inflation rate for so long could have had such an effect. Except they did, and Greenspan was wrong. It's his Randian problem and he'll have to shoulder the blame for it.

Placating David Broder

Hillary.

There is no one person more responsible for the current depression than Alan Greenspan. And after it all fell to pieces, he had the gall to tell us "nobody could have predicted it." Bullshit. We did. That's just more of the same line we've heard time and time again since this administration took office.

The money quote is hilarious.