Greenspan: not my fault

Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman wrote an article The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble on WSJ to defend himself. He was saying his low fed rate from 2003 to 2005 is NOT the cause for the housing bubble, and current financial crisis. Interesting stuff. I remember Oct. Anderson Cooper (CNN) did a series of 10 most wanted culprit for (financial) collapse, and Mr. Greenspan was No. 6. The English article on CNN360 is not easy to get, here is Chinese translation.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into those political stuff. My point is, probably he has his share of mistakes. Of course, he is not alone in all this. It takes a meltdown of the whole system for us to get here, from regulators including the broader goverment (democrats and republican; congress and presidents), from business to consumser, from wall street to main street, from US to China,…each made some convenient choice without thinking the long term.

But the human nature when we hear the blame, we will say: no, not my fault.

Psychology 101: denial is the first response we hear bad news.

Who to blame for current financial crisis?

Greenspan (regulators): for he kept interest rate too low (1%) for too long, during the recession after dot com bubble.

Bush (politicians): for his failed Iraq war which cost American tax payers more than 500 billions so far. He asked American “go shopping” after 911, in addition to buying a car or a house. Democrats are no better in this aspect: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have deep roots in Democrats leadship.

(Video by LATimes: anxious customers on day 2 of IndyMac Fed takeover)

Who Knows Chinese Stock Market Better?

Mr. Greenspan (former US Fed chief), Jim Rogers (legendary investor), or Shang Fu Lin (Chairman, China Securities Regulation Committee)?

For me this is an easy pick (the latter two). But it seems people in the west believe in Mr. Greenspan better. Now after making comments in Feb (which partially caused the Feb. 27 crash), the old man speaks again. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot respect for Mr. Greenspan regarding economy indicators, monetary policy, all the good stuffs, but not on the Chinese stock market.