People News

Alan Greenspan wants his Republican Party back, please

By Stone Martindale Sep 17, 2007, 12:29 GMT

U.S. Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan. US Central Bank head of many years Alan Greenspan is due to be hired as a consultant by Germany‘s Deutsche Bank, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. According to the paper, 81-year-old Greenspan is to work for the bank‘s investment sector. EPA/MATTHEW CAVANAUGH

Once upon a time, Republicans stood for small government, and left the private business of people's bedrooms to the people.  Mentioning religion was considered bad manners in politics. 

Those Barry Goldwater days are what former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan misses, and says in his memoir that the party to which he has belonged all his life deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its core, small-government principles.

In "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," published by Penguin Press, Greenspan has some withering comments for congressional Republicans and President George W. Bush for fiscal irresponsiblilty.

Greenspan has always claimed to be a "lifelong libertarian Republican," but "out-of-control" at the hands of Republicans controlled Congress and President Bush's failure to reign it in "was a major mistake."

In his book, he writes of the Republicans in Congress, who "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."

The housing boom according to Greenspan is mostly due to the death of communism, which the Wall Street Journal claims he says "unleashed hundreds of millions of workers on global markets, putting downward pressure on wages and prices, and thus on long-term interest rates."

Greenspan is heavily promoting the book, appearing last night on CBS' 60 Minutes, and NBC's "Today" and CNBC, interviews with foreign and U.S. media, book signings and speaking engagements.

The book's official release comes a day before the most-watched Fed meeting of the year.

On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, must decide whether to cut interest rates to cushion the economy from the reversal of the housing boom.

The WSJ reports that Greenspan claims "President Bush chose Dick Cheney as vice president and Paul O'Neill as treasury secretary -- both colleagues from the Gerald Ford administration, during which Mr. Greenspan was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers -- he 'indulged in a bit of fantasy' that this would be the government that would have resulted if Mr. Ford hadn't lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976."

The Bush White House, the "political operation was far more dominant" than in  Ford's. "Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences," Greenspan writes in his memoir.

Last night on "60 Minutes," Greenspan discusses the Presidents he knew in detail.  Greenspan liked Ford, who he writes, "was as close to normal as you get in a president, but he was never elected."

Profane Richard Nixon was described as "an extremely smart man who is sadly paranoid, misanthropic and cynical." Greenspan noted he was anti-Semitic, anti-Italian, anti-Greek, anti-Slovak. I don't know anybody he was pro."

Saying Ronald Reagan had a different, odd kind of intelligence, Greenspan mentioned his ability to instantly tap one-liners and anecdotes and make the country feel good about itself.

He described Democrat Bill Clinton as "a fellow information hound" with "a consistent, disciplined focus on long-term economic growth" and Hillary Clinton as a very smart and capable woman who could ver easily handle the job of President.