Greenspan - Recession at least 50% likely.

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2008-01-30 11:36am

BERLIN (Reuters) - The likelihood of the economy slipping into recession is at least 50 percent, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was quoted on Wednesday as saying.
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"I believe the probability of a recession is at least 50 percent, but up to now there are few signs that we are already in one," Greenspan said in an interview with weekly newspaper Die Zeit published in German. "In my opinion, it will probably happen but the facts suggest we are not there yet."

Asked whether central bankers and financial policymakers could head off a U.S. recession, Greenspan said: "Probably not. Global economic influences today are stronger than almost anything that monetary or fiscal policy can counter them with."

"Long-term real interest rates have significantly more influence on the core of the economy than decisions by national governments," he added. "And central banks have increasingly lost the ability to influence these long-term rates, whereas 20 or 30 years ago they still dominated there.

"So the more important question today is in which direction long-term real interest rates are heading."

The Fed is expected to cut interest rates again on Wednesday as part of its effort to offset the effects of a deep housing slump and credit crunch. This cut would follow a 75 basis point reduction last week to 3.5 percent and mark one of the deepest and fastest rate-cutting episodes since the early 1980s.

The U.S. economy grew at a 4.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2007, but gloomy economic data this month -- notably a report of weak hiring in December -- suggests growth has slowed abruptly.

(Reporting by Iain Rogers; editing by David Stamp)

no comment.

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2008-01-30 11:37am

except that for some reason....I cannot fucking quote on this board...

Mod please fix my fuck up. Thanks.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2008-01-30 11:39am

Fixed.

The implication of this announcement of course, is that the last recession ended since 2001... Unfortunately, unemployment has only gone up since then. Just saying.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-01-30 12:07pm

Good job he isn't still in office at the Fed, else I'd sack him and replace him with a penny. Heads we go into recession, tails we don't.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-01-30 01:06pm

SirNitram wrote:Fixed.

The implication of this announcement of course, is that the last recession ended since 2001... Unfortunately, unemployment has only gone up since then. Just saying.

But ... but ... job creation has increased for 56 straight months! The economy, thanks to Bush's tax cuts, has grown robustly and made 50 million new jobs in seven years!

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-01-31 02:29am

Who is Greenspan kidding? Just about every major sector of the economy has either flatlined or is in a slump, we're only seeing the first reel of SubPrime: The Horror Movie, and the Fed's interest rate cuts have so far proven generally ineffective. He's either out of touch, still believes his word alone can pull the markets one way or the other, or is whoring for somebody.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-01-31 02:33am

Did Greenspan honestly believe that if you used the government to create an investors' paradise, then investors would be both ethical and rational enough to repay society somehow, rather than acting out of short-sighted greed and herd instinct?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-01-31 03:03am

Mike, he IS a Randroid; fully-documented. Except unlike his brethren he betrayed his ideological principles for power, influence, and profit by being a government central bank regulator. So, he's a unprincipled opportunistic douchebag within Randroid-dom.

Fun "Easy Al" quotes:

"Whatever you tax, you get less of."

"In retrospect, I see nothing that we did that was inappropriate in terms of policy."

Him defending Rand:

"To the editor:

"Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Mr. Hicks suspiciously wonders "about a person who sustains such a mood through the writing of 1,168 pages and some fourteen years of work." This reader wonders about a person who finds unrelenting justice personally disturbing.

Alan Greenspan, New York."

This one is hilarious, considering what's happening and its causes:

"The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake."

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-01-31 03:17am

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake.

Wow... when did he say that gem? I guess those people speak irony without really realizing it.

Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.

Well, that's not a totally lost individual - Greenspan could have drafted sound policy. Somewhere in the colonial era.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2008-01-31 11:09am

Didn't Alan have a massive crush on Rand? Actually, didn't he have a relationship with her (or the closest thing one could have with such a person, at least) at one point?

He's either out of touch, still believes his word alone can pull the markets one way or the other, or is whoring for somebody.

Yeah, he's whoring for himself, because it was his policies that got us here.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-01-31 12:29pm

Actually, didn't he have a relationship with her (or the closest thing one could have with such a person, at least) at one point?

That's creepy, because she's as scary and asexual as a fanatic could be.

Norseman · Post by **Norseman** » 2008-01-31 12:57pm

Stas Bush wrote:
Actually, didn't he have a relationship with her (or the closest thing one could have with such a person, at least) at one point?
That's creepy, because she's as scary and asexual as a fanatic could be.

I got serious bad news for you Stas Bush, but Ayn Rand had several affairs, and she had a big thing for bondage/rape/rough sex, as evidenced by her literature and some of her statements...

For instance though both Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden were married they had an affair with the approval of their respective spouses. The idea was that since they were so rational not having an affair would be irrational, and since they were both rational there'd be no emotional fallout whatsoever.

She also felt that smoking was the only rational thing (it made you like prometheus, commanding fire at your fingertipes!), and that Mickey Spillane was a better writer than Shakespeare. If you denied any of this you were irrational and immoral!

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-01-31 01:09pm

I got serious bad news for you Stas Bush, but Ayn Rand had several affairs

So someone fucked her?

Big deal... she looks ugly and totally asexual however. I guess it's her temper.

She also felt that smoking was the only rational thing (it made you like prometheus, commanding fire at your fingertipes!)

Well, good riddance then.

Norseman · Post by **Norseman** » 2008-01-31 01:14pm

Stas Bush wrote:She also felt that smoking was the only rational thing (it made you like prometheus, commanding fire at your fingertipes!)

Well, good riddance then.[/quote]

HEY! You're talking about the woman that inspired Terry Goodkind to write! Indeed his latest books are a passionate tribute to Rand. That's got to count for something right?

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-01-31 01:16pm

You're talking about the woman that inspired Terry Goodkind to write!

I couldn't care less if Terry didn't write a single word. Last books are also utter crap, which is only natural

NeoGoomba · Post by **NeoGoomba** » 2008-01-31 03:24pm

Wow I totally forgot his (to put it midly) flirtation with Objectivism and Rand. That idiocy totally fits with the current regime though, so it can't be too surprising. Rand vehemently opposed any sort of criticism and seemed to simply shut it all out with rage and threats.

Familiar?

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2008-02-01 07:54pm

Holy shit, he even sounds wishy-washy to me, and I've got an economics degree, the first rule of which is "tell them what will happen or when, but not both." All he's saying is "we may or may not be entering a recession." Thank you Captain Obvious! I don't even have words for how useless that prediction is. I should charge Greenspan for the portion of my life he wasted with that idiocy. As well as the portion of my retirement fund that's been lost due to the slump his idiotic helming of the Fed caused.