Gene Lyons

Idealism has taken a hit recently, and it's not the idealism of liberals or Democrats, either:

Last week’s ritual humiliation of former Federal Reserve chairman and free market guru Alan Greenspan by a committee of grandstanding congressmen would be sad if not so richly deserved. A free-market zealot as deluded as the woolliest Marxist English professor, Greenspan professed himself horrified by the gigantic Ponzi scheme constructed by Wall Street mortgage lenders and investment banks. Poor fellow, he’d evidently never paused to consider why banks need armed guards.

Greenspan should have given up on Randroidism when he reached adulthood.

The Economic Mess

Another major culprit in the mess we are in is Ayn Rand devotee, former Fed chair, and husband of Andrea Mitchell, Alan Greenspan:

But others hold a starkly different view of how global markets unwound, and the role that Mr. Greenspan played in setting up this unrest.

“Clearly, derivatives are a centerpiece of the crisis, and he was the leading proponent of the deregulation of derivatives,” said Frank Partnoy, a law professor at the University of San Diego and an expert on financial regulation.

The derivatives market is $531 trillion, up from $106 trillion in 2002 and a relative pittance just two decades ago. Theoretically intended to limit risk and ward off financial problems, the contracts instead have stoked uncertainty and actually spread risk amid doubts about how companies value them.

If Mr. Greenspan had acted differently during his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, many economists say, the current crisis might have been averted or muted.

Over the years, Mr. Greenspan helped enable an ambitious American experiment in letting market forces run free. Now, the nation is confronting the consequences.

What kills me is this Friedmanite religion (which is nothing more than Randroidism among economists) was so against what we have ALL known has worked in this economy, yet the Friedmanites didn't care. Government was evil, unless to bail out the financial elites when they invariably fucked up with their greed and incompetence, business was God no matter how crooked or how much they hurt workers, and to hell with the truth or reality.

Believe me, the article notes Greenspan's fanaticism:

A professed libertarian, he counted among his formative influences the novelist Ayn Rand, who portrayed collective power as an evil force set against the enlightened self-interest of individuals. In turn, he showed a resolute faith that those participating in financial markets would act responsibly.

An examination of more than two decades of Mr. Greenspan’s record on financial regulation and derivatives in particular reveals the degree to which he tethered the health of the nation’s economy to that faith.

Most Randroids grow up and see the light, but Greenspan never did, much to the grief of the U.S.

More Campaign Notes.

Since Hillary Clinton isn't going to win Iowa anyway, her campaign is advising the staff to lower their expectations there.
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This blogger makes a lot of sense analyzing why the likes of Greenspan and Buckley hate John Edwards' guts.

Populism, which Edwards represents, is the enemy of the elite economic class.
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Miscellaneous News.

What a sick son of a bitch.
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Did Luciano Pavarotti waste his talent?
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Alan Greenspan desperately tries to cover his ass over the mess he helped create.
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A revival of the old 1960s marches can be seen in the Jena Six protests:

Bell and four other teenagers initially were booked with attempted murder, and those four still face aggravated battery charges. Charges against a sixth person, a juvenile, haven't been made public. The case stems from the six students allegedly beating a white classmate in the wake of other white students hanging nooses from a tree in the school courtyard.

Critics of Walters' handling of the case have said the six teenagers were the victims of an overzealous prosecutor and that they were treated unfairly because they are black. They say some of racial attitudes that persist in Jena are reflective of how the justice system handles black and poor defendants in other parts of the country.

Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, described the scene as reminiscent of previous civil rights struggles. He said punishment of some sort might be in order for the six defendants, but "the justice system isn't applied the same to all crimes and all people."

Some background in case people haven't paid attention to this case:

The December beating was the culmination of racial taunts and confrontations involving Robert Bailey Jr., one of the accused teens, after black students sat under an oak tree in the school courtyard where for two decades white students traditionally gathered. A day later, the black students found nooses hanging from the tree. The white students who put them there were given only in-school suspensions by the schools superintendent, even though the high school's principal had recommended they be expelled.

Walters said he didn't charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no state law under which they could be charged.

Bean said parents met in a Baptist church after the nooses incident. The next day, Bailey and several friends decided to stand under the tree in protest, Bean said.

In an emergency assembly called at the school, black students say Walters warned students he could "take away their lives with a stroke of my pen." Walters has denied making the comment.

Bean said sporadic skirmishes between black and white students sparked even more tension between the students who hung the nooses and the Jena Six, a group of close football players. Last November, an arsonist burned a wing of the school, heightening tensions even more. That case remains unsolved.

More at the link.
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Floyd Landis is shit out of luck.
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