The undertaker

[Greybird]

From "The People Responsible for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," an analysis and commentary at The Motley Fool (10 September):

It was a wise man who noted that the only corporate structure more insidious than a government-sponsored monopoly is a government-sponsored and investor-owned monopoly. In the end, as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have now so painfully proved, trying to serve the master of public policy while generating returns for investors will lead to disaster.

Fannie and Freddie collapsed because they were part and parcel of the widespread gross financial misconduct that has taken place in the United States over the past decade. It's easy to miss this fact, but the reality is that too many people were making too much money pumping up the housing market. [emphasis added]

And which people, exactly? After outlining how various larger predators at these two misbegotten behemoths, and others abetting the carnage nearby, enriched themselves, the piece ends with someone who profited in a different way ...

[...] Alan Greenspan

If not the boldest of the group, then at least the most public, Greenspan, the man many are now blaming for the housing bubble (there were a brave few that piped up years ago), has refused to go quietly into his well-padded retirement. The man charged with providing the country with a financial voice of reason fell far short, so much so that it might be comical if it weren't so tragic.

Greenspan's denial of the possibility of a housing bubble has been widely derided in the past year, but a single statement could be excused as human error. However, a quick scan shows that this wasn't a single event. He also promoted the adoption and expansion of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) products in early 2004, when short-term rates were at or near historic lows.

That same year he claimed, "Securitization by Fannie and Freddie allows mortgage originators to separate themselves from almost all aspects of risk associated with mortgage lending." And separate themselves they did, ceasing to perform any kind of due diligence as to the ability of borrowers to pay for the homes they were buying.

Now retired from his role as the nation's monetary conscience, Greenspan continues to espouse his, er, theories on the financial crisis through editorials in which he denies any culpability for the events of the past three years. He is also applying his experience and insight as an advisor for Paulson & Company, a hedge fund which cashed in on billions of dollars by calling the collapse of the subprime mortgage market that Greenspan helped create. [emphasis added]

So he's keeping himself, and Andrea Mitchell, in groceries and resort vacations by playing off the downside of this entirely avoidable disaster, one he was at the core of creating.

Two other quotes come to mind, methinks, in regard to this. First, from fiction ...

Aunt Adeline: You're a maggot, Elsie. You feed on sores.

Ellsworth Toohey: Then I'll never starve.

Second, from non-fiction ...

Has the undertaker decided he exists yet?

~ Ayn Rand to Barbara Branden, circa 1957

I'd say that her wry monicker for Greenspan was always appropriate. Unfortunately, she felt that she had to see this man as someone heroic, even when he took a White House sinecure under Gerald Ford.

I am glad Rand didn't live to see this day. I also, though, find it painful to contemplate that she, of all people, may have given him an unearned patina or prestige.

I can't pick up Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal from the bookshelf without the irony — of Alan Greenspan, one of the great dissemblers of our time, writing therein about "Gold and Economic Freedom" — figuratively sizzling my hands.

This particular undertaker's bill is coming due, in both world-shaking villainy and his own venal, shameful grasping.

Forget the Forty Years' War over the Brandens. Those mistakes were petty on all sides, by comparison. This misappraisal of Greenspan's character, on the other hand, has actually had consequences for the rest of the world, and is still doing so.

[algernonsidney]

I wonder if they will ever remove that essay from future editions of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. The book will certainly survive without it. It's also the only Rand compilation that has a lot of stuff from Branden. It has to be pretty embarrassing now.

Murray Rothbard always insisted that Greenspan was a Keynesian. He definitely got it right.

Back in 1996, Liberty had a panel discussion on Rand that aired on C-SPAN. Lester Hunt, Barbara Branden, John Hospers, and RW Bradford were on the panel. I still remember Barbara saying: "I know Alan Greenspan very well.... He didn't want to go into government."

The question of why do people like certain people is always intriguing. While many Objectivists are extremely judgmental and critical of most other people, there are certain people who get a free pass for some reason. Greenspan definitely got a free pass.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It's also the only Rand compilation that has a lot of stuff from Branden.

VOS...

[Chris Grieb]

Baker can't get it right.

I understand after the split that Miss Rand decided not to include any other writers in her collections. The ARI folks decided to include Lennie and Pete.