Greenspan didn't always make sense even going back to the early '80's and his market predictions. I'm not quite sure what his reputation is founded on.

Anyone?

After watching Greenspan on 60 Minutes, I'd say he does a mean imitation of Captain Renault in Casablanca:

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

Greenspan sez, via Mr. Hundt:

"He [Greenspan] says he felt 'getting Saddam out of there was very important,'...because he was convinced the Iraq dictator wanted to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which a sizable portion of the world's oil passes...He conveyed that view to [Cheney and Rumsfeld]."

Cheney sez, Courtesy Dan K

Should all his ambitions be realized, the implications would be enormous for the Middle East, for the United States, and for the peace of the world. The whole range of weapons of mass destruction then would rest in the hands of a dictator who has already shown his willingness to use such weapons, and has done so, both in his war with Iran and against his own people. Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East,

All of which reminds me of my favorite Thomas Nast Cartoon...

Just change the titles on the characters and you have it...right up to date.  :-)   Now if we could only give them the idea of a circular firing squad. . . .<grin></grin>

aMike

I HAD to give you a "5" for that, but do you really think Andrea Mitchell has any principles?  Why do you think she married that old man?  I think it was Greenspan's lying ways, and his power (to get her in to every important Washington Dinner) that made him so sexy to her,  Who else in the MSM would have such ACCESS?  SUCH UNDESERVED RESPECT?  SUCH SUCK-UP-TIOM? SUCH    R-E-V-E-R-E-N-C-E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Only someone who (as many have) sold their souls to the POWER  ELITE.

If he loses Andrea Mitchell it will be becaue she has hooked up with someone else that she perceives as more powerful than her current trophy.   And if anyone stops speaking to Chris Matthews or Fox, it will be because they are sick of McPolitics.  I am. 

And if you don't stay informed, my advise to you is, PLEASE              DON'T VOTE!  We really don't need people who vote by sound-bite!  Inform yourselves, and then choose.

Jan

Greenspan looks a thousand years old. You'd think, as he nears the end, he'd find it in himself to square things with the people whose lives he's so profoundly affected. But no, he's still acting surprised that the measures he supported have created such mayhem. He is a shameful excuse for a human being.

I'm not quite sure what his reputation is founded on.

Anyone?

He and his wife are members of the Washington Establishment. They got there the old fashion way, kissing the ass of all the right people and not challenging the status quo.

"He [Greenspan] says he felt 'getting Saddam out of there was very important,'...because he was convinced the Iraq dictator wanted to control the Strait of Hormuz"

Get Saddam out of where? Out of Kuwait? Either Greenspan is senile or he was talking about the first Gulf War. Saddam might have seemed a threat at that time, but he certainly was no longer a threat after Saddam was defeated and chased out of Kuwait.

Greenspan is like the Wizzard of Oz. He's good at making it seem as if he's got some magical power over the economy, but he's really a silly little man who doesn't even know that Iraq doesn't boarder on the straight of Hormuz. He was lucky enough to head the Fed when a competent president was in charge, and smart enough to bail before all the consequences of Bush's mismanagement take hold.

While i will clearly in the minority here in saying this, it is pretty unfair to label Alan Greenspan a hack, and moreover it isn't true. While this is certainly an unusual comment to make, his track record as Fed Chairman really speaks for itself (that BTW is what his reputation is built on, success). Harry Reid might like to take some shots, and that's why i love him, but they were pretty unfounded then, and try to find a respectable economist who bashes Greenspan as Reid did.

Maybe i'll be changed after reading his book, which i'm planning to get sometime this week, and maybe he had me hoodwinked all along too, who knows.

Re: cal1942,

Managing monetary policy for a country like America is pretty much 95% fantasy and wishful thinking, it's practically in the job description.

"about his remarks on the association between music and math, which he said are a mystery"

What, Greenspan never saw Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land?

Greenspan was correct in his assertion that Iraq is about oil. His conservative credentials have been exposed in his backing away from his statement. He simply slipped up in stating an obvious fact that conflicts with the WH that for obvious reasons has refuted Greenspans statement.

There can be no arguing the Iraq end game is about the fact that Iraq has easily extractable oil reserves which maximize profits which are second only to Saudi Arabia. Unexplored Iraqi reserves in the western Iraqi desert may even exceed that of the Saudis. If we examine the administration support for legislation in the Iraqi parliament we find it is very generous to western oil companies. The Iraq war is dragging on for multiple reasons and one of them is the internal Iraqi struggle to establish how the wealth of the Iraqi oil pie will be divided up.

I've no doubt regional Muslim extremism, and terrorism, is intimately tied to this and the fact they wish to limit as much as possible the influence of foreign oil interests with the intention of preserving regional wealth for Arab states.

Global demand for oil has driven OPEC to keep a very close eye on supplies in order to maximize profits. In some quarters, development of Iraqi reserves is likely seen as an undesirable thing because it may cause prices to drop. OPEC is walking a fine line between sustainable pricing and forcing energy consuming countries to accelerate adoption of alternative forms of energy provisioning. They know the goose can't lay golden eggs forever but want to have it continue for as long as possible.

Muslim extremism and terrorism play into that scenario very nicely with little or no intervention upon the part of governments in Arab states. How convenient for them. The U.S. intervention in Iraq aids their interests as well. It distracts the U.S and other western nations from developing alternative energy forms.

You don't really need a score card to understand how this game is going to end. Western oil consuming nations and producers will take a beating. The Chinese seem to get it better than most. Three Gorges dam is about this. China is second only to the U.S. in wind energy resources and they have an agressive plan to develop that as well. The U.S. particularly needs a cohesive energy plan to address domestic economic growth. Right now no such plan exists. We need a braod energy strategy that encapsulates all forms of energy development that leverages our technical prowess. Unfortunately the Bush administration has done little to promote our domestic capabilities in this regard.

Instead of grooming our system of public education to allow the U.S. to remain a leader in technology development the administration has undermined public education by adopting feel good sloganeering that is superficial at best. The WH energy strategy, lead by the Cheney Energy Task Force, is emblamatic of how ill conceived our strategy is. The strategy abandoned our greatest asset by not involving industry, academia and the public in evolving a nationally unified strategy. We have all the necessary toools to get this done. However, the administration made a conscious decision to let them lie in a corner unused in favor of political payback, cronyism and a hackneyed approach to the application of science influenced by pressure from the religious right.

For a lack of understanding of so many things this administration has undertaken to lead this nation in a direction that is all too obviously wrong. I cannot think of a single policy or approach to any issue that I happen to feel has been correct. And as a general perspective the results bear our my feeling.

Greenspan's comment, made in an interview with Matt Lauer, is even worse when you see the full quote in context:

"Saddam Hussein was obviously seeking to get a chokehold on the Straits of Hormuz, where about 18 million barrels a day, flow from the Middle East to the industrial world. Had he been able to get a hold of a nuclear weapon and indeed move through Kuwait and into Saudi Arabia and control the Straits of Hormuz it would have caused chaos..."

1. "obviously seeking". As destor23 says, someone was either believing Saddam's bluster, or perhaps someone was reading Doug Feith's intel. Whatever the case, this blind subservience to Saddam's pipe dreams almost amounts to criminal negligence.

2. "Had he been able to get a hold of a nuclear weapon and indeed move through Kuwait and into Saudi Arabia". Let's break this down... So Saddam gets a nuke. Big if there, but let's play along with the assumption. And let's say he has eyes for the Strait of Hormuz.

Why on God's green earth would he take the scenic route via Kuwait? Especially after the experience of 1991. Why would he not make a beeline for the UAE or Oman - or Iran if he were feeling especially punchy - and surely he would avoid the inconvenience of tangling with the Saudis who already don't control the strait.*

Anyways, bottom line is Greenspan could have been talking about the Suez Canal and it would have made been just as crazy an argument. Of course, as soon as you add "nuclear weapon" into the equation, you instantly recalibrate the issue, which shows once again why the bogus intelligence on Saddam's non-existent nuclear program and trashing of Mohammed Elbaradei was so integral to getting us into the war. And quite what Greenspan's remit was to weigh in on the discussions is another issue altogether.

*They have us do it for them, but that's even more reason for Saddam not to tangle with the House of Saud.

"The obvious implication between the lines is controlling the Straight *one annexation at a time."

I heard that excerpt last night, about Kuwait, then Saudi Arabia, etc. My response was "this is all true. Saddam did invade Kuwait, and have designs on the Saudi peninsula. As a result, he was crushed by American military might. TWENTY F***ING YEARS AGO!"

Since the Fed deliberately keeps its decision-making process obscure, it is difficult for an impeachment movement to get any traction in real-time. Any attempt to find out what is really going on would be denounced as political interference in a supposedly apolitical institution. That is potentially an Achilles heel for government accountability in our system. If we can't even get accountability from Vice-President Cheney, ...

Now, if the Fed Chairman actually had some means to acquire war powers and control over our intelligence services, that would be the basis for an interesting novel. The novel would have to assume a conspiracy of some kind.

Seriously, however, I was dismayed to learn that Greenspan was a follower of Ayn Rand and that he describes himself as a libertarian Republican. The chairman of the Fed ought to actually be apolitical. It is a legend among those who attempt to time the stock market that the market is usually bullish in the year preceding the re-election of an incumbent president. The assumption seems to be that the Fed Chairman takes orders from the President. We can see from Greenspan's account of things that extremely biased decisions can be made by the Fed for nominally ideological reasons, with deniability that the President actually gives the Fed orders.

So it was either lift the embargo and he gets nukes or war?

I don't remember the choice being quite so stark.

btw, props to Reed on the clever Ayn Rand reference in his post.

There was no believable evidence that Saddam was stupid enough to think he could take Saudi Arabia. He knew we would not tolerate that. He did not know we would get pissed about Kuwait, since it was very local, and we had pretty much said we took no position on it.

Oil money makes the world go round,
the world go round...

Have you heard anything about the PR company The Rendon Group? They are pretty much responsible for orchestrating the campaign to convince the Saudis of an immenent threat, but it turned out most of their info was bogus. Satellite pictures were faked to show troops massing, and the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter testified to Congress about other tall tales, such as killed babies.

Thanks Reed. Don't you wish at least one person in the MSM might have noticed this?

I always thought most of Greenspan's addresses to Congress were intended to obscure more than to reveal. He seemed a real master of dense circumlocution, and far too often, it all was taken for genius.

Kevin Russell Cook