Greenspan Admits: "It Was All My Fault"

In dramatic testimony today, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledged that he had caused the current financial meltdown.

"I messed up," the venerable sage told Congress. "Oops."

Greenspan, who is married to the also venerable (but strangely youthful looking) Andrea Mitchell, said that "a bunch of rich guys" had told him to take the policy positions that led to the market collapse and that "it made sense to me at the time."

When asked how he could have taken positions that have caused so much suffering, Greenspan appeared at first flustered, and then made a surprise announcement.

"I'd been hoping to avoid this getting out," Greenspan said, "but I have an evil twin." With that, he seemed to acquire a bushy head of hair and a white beard and introduced himself as "Karl."

"Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks," he said vehemently. " My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism!"

This outburst puzzled the Committee which descended into argument, shouting and spitball pelting of the witness until Rep. Henry Waxman called for security guards to remove him.

"All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind!" Greenspan/Marx shouted as he was escorted from the room.

The Committee meets again tomorrow, when it expects to call Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Herbert Hoover as witnesses.

Comments

[DavidJames]

Seems kind of misguided to blame Greenspan. Didn't the economy run along just fine with him at the wheel for 18 years through several different administrations. Admittedly he had transformed the US economy into a kind of turbo Porsche Carrera of economies(high performance, but treacherous handling).

However somebody else has been driving the car! That the car has been driven completely off the road and has flipped over several times isn't Greenspan's fault. The problem is with the current driver, George W. Bush.

[JPHR]

I do agree. Greenspan did fail to regulate, but at least has the honesty to admit that he relied on a fundamentally flawed ideology.
However Wall Street committed the outright fraud of securitizing debt provided it with an unjustified AAA rating and sold it on. Wall street fraudulently used "sophisticated financial engineering" to create structured products which prove impossible to value now. Wall Street hid debt in SIVs and covered up inadequate capital with CDS and other types of "insurance".
Bush practiced totally irresponsible fiscal policies and his adherence to the same flawed ideology caused a much wider breakdown of the regulatory framework. But do not expect Bush to apologize. Your Bum in Mischief is still in denial (check his public statements on "democratic capitalism" and please note that capitalism has nothing to do with democracy), besides he claims to answer to a higher authority.
Wall Street tries to put the blame on the low rates of the FED, but that can never be a cause for the criminal misconduct of both Wall Street and the Bush administration.

[davidly]

I think I get it. Only this way could the capitalists who've ranted paranoid about the communist conspiracy to destroy them actually have their prophesy fulfilled.