Apparently, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic advisor, agrees with Greenspan. But he reconciles it by adding, "It’s the brand,� he said, “and you don’t dilute the brand.� It's a bit like when Cheney said that things had to be said during a campaign.

The good news is Alan's wife: Andrea Mitchell. You gotta believe these opinions work themselves into her reporting.

The tide is turning, kids.

We're gonna win this thing.

Just remember: Starve the beast.

What a twisted, ghoulish sense of humor McCain has. Imagine if Obama make jokes like that - we'd never hear the end of how "this shows he's not stable and mature enough to be president."

John McCain, of all people, should not reference "Weekend at Bernie's."

The potential karmic/ironic blowback is just too strong.

Alan Greenspan refusing to whore himself out for a Republican candidate? Maybe Sarah Palin's church is right -- perhaps the end of the world IS near...

I wouldn't count on this working its way into Mitchell's "reporting," though. I think his latest round of media appearances are just an extension of his "Desperately Trying To Salvage My Reputation" tour. At heart he's still a right-wing tool.

Hey Obama campaign. Get a fucking clue. Greenspan's and Holtz-Eakin's quotes in an ad, with the voiceover saying "John McCain is lying to you. Again. Can't he tell the truth about ANYTHING"? Get that ad on the air in every swing state TOMORROW.

I forget the specifics, but the McCain camp really hammered Andrea Mitchell (Greenspan's wife) a couple weeks ago. There might be a little payback.

Or a simple commercial that has McCain's picture and this caption:

What to expect from a McCain presidency: WAR, DEBT AND POLLUTION.

Because thats all we are going to fucking get from this slimeball....

But EVERY ad must reinforce the "McCain is a shameless liar" theme. By the end of the campaign his picture should be in the dictionary next to the definition of "liar". We didn't ask for the game to work this way, but thanks to Rove it does, and we either play it to win or we get skunked yet again.

I don't understand the bad rap Greenspan has gotten.

He proposed tax cuts during Clinton's surplus as a superior choice because Congress would be inclined to spend it. This is reasonable. He was probably right. Growth in the GDP would make the debt more manageable. (The panacea conservatives love DOES work when we aren't heaping loads of debt into the equation, just not as fast as paying down the debt directly with surpluses.)

When the deficit went away, he mumbled rather than screamed, but would it have done any good with Dubya at the helm? The markets would crash and Dubya would STILL put the tax cuts through.

He didn't pop the bubble quick enough? I think we could have coped.... the only people screwed by that were technology speculators.

The HOUSING bubble screwed people out of buying a home and lured in myriad suckers who bought overpriced real estate. Greenspan bailed rather than take Dubya over his knee. Gutless? Maybe. Can we really say we'd be willing to suffer through the fight it would take to undermine the investors that contribute so heavily to Senators like Gramm that crush regulations that prevent wild excesses that are so profitable for the pump and dump artists that truly orchestrate the modern Republican economy.

Bernanke could grow a set and scream about the mismanagement of the budget6, but I might be pleased to at least hear a Greenspan-esque mumble.

\He seems resigned to fixing problems caused by an unwillingness to pay for what we buy and put everything on the Chinese Express card rather than suggesting we needed to make more than the "minimum payment" at the top of the statement.

That's what Democrats are for I guess. Clean up their mess and then let the GOP enjoy the spoils of cleaned up books. (aka tax raises.)

Democrats - Vegetables and Cod Liver Oil
Republicans - Burgers, fries and milkshakes.

Dang shame we can't win until the whole country is violently ill.

Senator McCain's proposed tax cuts - like Bush's, aimed at the wealthy - are the largest piece of porkbarrel spending every proposed by someone in Congress.

The proposed McCain tax cuts for the wealthy are also proof positive that McCain is Bush/Cheney redux. Just more of the same failed policies that have nearly destroyed our economy.

What does McCain's claim to reform Congress by cutting earmarks and porkbarrel spending say about his proposed Presidency? Why is McCain running for President promising to reform the very Congress he has been a prominent member of for nearly three decades?

Winkandanod, this is for you!

Tooweary,

Want to know why Greenspan is getting a bad rap? Let me offer the short form answer. He is getting the bad rap because every American and much of the rest of the world is currently paying for his failed decisions as Federal Reserve Chairman. The full bill hasn't yet been presented and it will be a shocker when it is. Greenspan was central to creating the current economic crisis that is second (so far) only to the Great Depression.

Alan Greenspan created the housing bubble by lowering the interest rates and making money so cheap that no one could get enough interest on bonds to cover the cost of inflation. Similarly he had earlier created the dot com bubble to inflate the American economy to prevent a collapse of the world economy with globalized financial markets destroyed the economies if Southeast Asia, Argentina and Russia. But the dot com bubble initially had an excuse - to prevent the spread of the international financial crisis of the late 90's. But then Greenspan started manipulating the economy for political reasons - to elect and reelect George Bush and the conservatives. He was playing political games by manipulating the interest rate. Here's how.

As the housing bubble grew he publicly stated that it was not a problem, he refused to use the already existing powers of the federal reserve to regulate the quality of bank mortgage lending and by doing that he built the housing bubble to massive proportions.

He also used the power of the federal reserve to influence the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. (In my link, look at the years indicated in blue. Jamie Galbraith has a more scholarly analysis that says the same thing.)

He pushed the interest rate in 2000 before the election to 6.5% which slowed the economy. Why? The condition of the economy in the year of the Presidential election is one of the three major factors that determines whether the party currently holding the Presidency will keep it. The slowing economy in 2000 was a major factor that got Bush close enough to Gore so that Florida and the Supreme Court five could tip the election.

Then, immediately after the 2000 election, Greenspan started lowering the interest rates so that in 2004 by the time of the election they were at 1.75%, the lowest they had been since the 1950's. That and the related housing bubble was clearly designed to reelect Bush.

Then immediately after the election, Greenspan started raising the interest rates to try to repair the damage he had done to the economy. Seventeen straight months of 1/4% increases. He was trying to kill the housing bubble he had created, but since Greenspan is a libertarian (a member of Ayn Rand's inner circle, no less) his deregulation of the banks and financial industry had destroyed the integrity of the financial industry that was financing the housing bubble he had created. The banks had become so shaky and so highly leveraged that they had no reserves to protect themselves when the low-quality mortgages they had been encouraged by Greenspan to issue started going into default. Remember, Bear Stearns was leveraged at 33 - 1 and heavily into high risk/high return mortgage products. It was Greenspan's effort to limit the damage his low interest rates had caused that set off the mortgage crisis, but it was his refusal to regulate the banking industry (and his encouraging of ARMs and subprime mortgages) that allowed it to become so weak it could not handle the shock of his interest rate increases.

Alan Greenspan was the single most central player in the entire financial mismanagement mess that the Bush administration represents. The runaway spending on the Iraq War and the tax cuts to the Rich add to the problems, but Alan Greenspan was clearly at the very center of the current economic problems America is really just entering.

So that's why Greenspan is getting the bad rap. It is totally deserved.

John McCain conceded that he doesn't understand economics, but boasted, "I've got Greenspan's book." Alan Greenspan now says the country can't afford the tax cuts proposed by John McCain. We need someone who understands the American economy and world trade. John McCain isn't the person we need to be President in 2009.

The HOUSING bubble screwed people out of buying a home and lured in myriad suckers who bought overpriced real estate. Posted by: toowearyforoutrage

The bubble did not "screw people out of buying a home . . ." Anyone who was smart enough not to get sucked into a sub-prime adjustable rate mortgage but has money for a proper down payment and sufficient income for an approximately 6% 30-year fixed loan is now in a better position to buy a home than they were 18-months ago. Anyone who is in foreclosure because the got a NINJA loan or something similar should not be getting even crocodile tears. The other sub-set of losers in this game that we can spare our sympathy are the "flippers" who got into the game six months to a year too late.

That being said, Greenspan is a piece of shit, but one of many in this mountain high pile who bares partial responsibility for our current financial problems.