Greenspan’s failure
This is breathtaking…in an AP article in today’s Age on the US congressional hearing -
Greenspan said he had failed to predict a significant decline in home prices because the country had never experienced such a decline before.
Greenspan said that the current crisis had “turned out to be much broader than anything that I could have imagined”.
Yup, that’s right. He (and others of course) failed to predict something because it had never happened before. Yet you can be sure that if he was asked during his reign as Head of the US Reserve Bank if he thought such things could happen, his response would have something like “inconceivable”.
Remarkable isn’t it? Those of us who doubt the logic of the free market have always entertained the idea that such a collapse is not only possible but also probable yet those that deny the obvious shortcomings of a system predicated on greed are left with statements like those uttered by Mr Greenspan. It isn’t a failure of perception, it is a failure of imagination.
Doesn’t bode well for the coming crisis in the environment.