At a talk recently in New York City, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, was asked by an former Israelli banker and head of AIG--one of the recipients of the U.S.'s nearly trillion dollar bank bailout--what Greenspan could have done to prevent the banking meltdown.
Essentially, Greenspan said, nothing. That he did nothing, that nothing could be done, that nothing could ever be done, to prevent something like that from happening. Greenspan admitted that his total lack of oversight into the banking bubble allowed for so many bankers and mortgage brokers and investment firms, to practice bad lending, and run amuck with credit schemes...but stopped far short of casting actual blame on himself, saying basically that it would have happened anyway, regardless if he'd actually been proactive and did something, or not.
Oh, good. Nice to know the 80-something year old ex-most powerful banker in the world, could shed some light on things.
And, Greenspan wasn't proactive, of course...but wouldn't admit it outright. Well, let's hope the new chairman of the fed will have bigger balls in his pants and more hair on his chest, ey?
"I dunno' what happened to all our money, Ricky. I thought Alan knew what he was doing--WAAHHH!"
"It was all Lucy's idea---WAAHHH!"
