Economic Crisis Spurs a Hard Look at the Legacy of a Fed Chief

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=legacy%20of%20a%20fed%20chief&st=cse&oref=slogin

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 9:48 AM
Subject: Economic Crisis Spurs a Hard Look at the Legacy of a Fed Chief
To: letters@nytimes.com

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To the Editor:

    A dozen years ago, Brooksley Born's commission warned of the perils of a banking industry that had escaped regulation. With the benefit of hindsight, the rest of of have come to understand this more recently. Whatever Alan Greenspan's powers as chairman of the Federal Reserve during these last two decades, he cannot be the author of this disaster. That distinction belongs to Phil Gramm, whose anti-regulatory fervor led him to spearhead the Commodity Trading Modernization Act. While Mr. Greenspan assured the nation that federal regulation of the derivatives market was unnecessary, it was the Congress that made it illegal. Now Mr. Gramm is the chief advisor to senator McCain on economic matters. A nation hungry for change and for economic stability has no room for such an ideologue or his acolytes in our next administration.

Barry Levine