Greenspan Warns Against Stagflation, Calls For More Aid To Homeowners

AP:

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, suggested Sunday that a tax break or other government financial help for homeowners facing the mortgage crunch would be the best political fix for the economy.

He cautioned against meddling with home prices or interest rates to address the housing problem.

Greenspan did not specifically call for a tax cut. Instead, he called for the government to apply money to the severe housing market slump. Such a cash infusion would typically come through a tax break or a new government spending program.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[hourglass]

of course any monies applied to the problem will benefit the wall street greed merchants that created it. the bill will, as always, fall on taxpayers - specifically, those in the $40K-100K bracket [voters who foolishly thought that republicans were referring to them when pushing their 'ownership' society voodoo]. the housing bubble was created because there was nothing real in the economy - the u.s.a. doesn't make anything the world wants anymore except financial instruments. we've been sliding from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation since ronald reagan. and wall street is bent on syphoning all remaining wealth from the country. wall street doing well means less and less to average, former middle class, americans.

[robinhood1]

We already have stagflation. Grocery bills have been going up much faster in the past year than average incomes. The country has been subsidizing real estate for years with favorable tax treatment. Why would we want to provide the industry with another tax cut? Our politicians tried to jump start the use of ethanol and all that did was drive up the price of corn, everyone's grocery bill and the Federal deficit.

Mr. Greenspan's interest rates cuts earlier in the decade fanned the flames of real estate speculation. Now the whole country is paying the price.

Mr. Greenspan has already had his turn at the Fed. It's time for him to move to south Florida with the other retirees.

[liveandlearn]

it's cheap to be seen as a capitalist whore after all the damage is done. welcome, mr. greenspan, to a bad reputation. too bad you wouldn't regulate when the opportunity was upon you.

[fearwig]

I love the comments to these kinds of articles. What is the topic about which Americans care most, say most, and know least? "It's the economy, stupid!"

[VivaZapata]

anyone that ugly on the outside ought to work harder to be beautiful on the inside; instead the mentality must be, "I'll look uglier inside, so the outside won't look so bad."

[milo9]

Why should we listen to Rumpleforeskin, this fiasco gestated on his watch.

[Superbus]

Let the mortgage companies fix this. Government interference is a short term solution that will lead to more long term problems.

[Lt]

These criminal scumbags do not care about anything but keeping the stock market up--

just remember during the coming collapse how we got to this point

the faith based bribe bought the mindless christian vote that begot george bush and the criminals from the vietnam war back into the white house

[VivaZapata]

welcome to the man who wounded a country, and then wanted to inflict more wounds to heal the wounds he inflicted originally.

[MACS]

I have yet to find anyone that claims that bush cares one iota about the success of the MIDDLE CLASS. As long as he panders to his rich buddies, he could care less.

[We]

Great employment opportunities for Economic Historians. Review all of Greenspan’s impenetrable presentations and see what direct effect they had on markets. An inside joke is a joke whose humour is clear only to those people who are "inside" a group.

[Forest]

If we follow Greenspan's logic, why not rescue all borrowers and their facilitators rather than restrict the bail-out to housing loans?

[nunzia]

Pay no mind to the man behin the curtain.

[VivaZapata]

if greenspan wants to bail out homeowners, HE and his buddies should do it and not expect taxpayers, most whom can't even afford to buy a home (but pay taxes without the benefit of write offs), to do it. it's bad enough we're paying for a war that only benefits oil companies. what a piece of greencrap!

[truthyguy]

The bush administration - assuming it even thought a cash infusion was a good idea - could not find the cash. All our cash is in Iraq or Halliburton's bank account.