Soros Says Greenspan Lost Credibility in Helping Bush Campaign

[struggle4progress]

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- George Soros, the billionaire investor, said Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has lost credibility for driving the benchmark U.S. interest rate to a four-decade low and advocating tax cuts that he said caused the U.S. budget deficit to balloon.

Soros, chairman of the New York-based Soros Fund Management LLC, said Greenspan sought to help President George W. Bush win re-election. Soros spent $26.5 million, more than any other individual donor or political action committee to seek to defeat Bush in November's elections.

``Greenspan lost credibility with me when he became too political,'' Soros, 74, said in an interview today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``He tried to push interest rates further down in order to help the re-election campaign, and also reached out beyond his sphere of competence by advocating tax cuts which then led to the current deficit.''

Soros said he expected the U.S. currency to extend its three-year slide as officials and executives from the U.S., Europe and Asia at Davos blamed the U.S. budget and current account deficits for causing a plunge in the dollar. Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, the world's richest man, said yesterday that he's betting on a further slide in the dollar, calling the deficits ``scary.'' <snip>

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aOx5Ws9oyI9M&refer=top_world_news

[liberalnurse]

1. He sure has that right.

Soro's is a great man! Greenspan has become an old dog......who rolls over on command. A great disappointment.

[CollegeDNC]

2. Greenspan is fat and overhyped

Greespan is a vastly overrated Bush "Butt Boy". His wife maybe decent, but he is nothing but an overhyped moron who is willing to say whatever Bush wants as long as they pay him enough.

[liberalnurse]

4. So, you are saying he is an old, overweight

lap dog who will roll over on command.......for a biscuit.....I see....I agree.....

[Toronto Ron]

8. You're wrong about one thing

Greenspan's wife, Andrea Mitchell, is a horrendous "journalist", even by MSM standards.

[ckramer]

22. I hate her "new look" - it's disgusting

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Not the "fat" trope again!

1. Greenspan isn't fat by a longshot.

2. Fat people are not bad, no matter what the media tell you.

Oh, and I forgot ...

3. Passive homosexual men are not bad, no matter what the Fundies tell you.

Rethink, reload, and resume firing.

--p!

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. Thanks for putting this in.

I especially like the "rethink, reload, and resume firing." Would it be OK with you if I used it too? Puts it in a nutshell for these unconscious framing slurs.

[Dogmudgeon]

15. Feel free to use it as you will

Glad you like it! I'm not above the occasional gaffe myself; and when passions run high, it's way too easy to start in-fighting. I initially wanted to post a flaming reply, but then thought about the Big Picture. Most good quotes from anyone seem to come from that kind of thinking.

With any luck, I'll be able to come up with a few more :)

--p!

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. Thanks, p! These non-flaming, thought-inducing quotes

are a good way to help nudge along the huge project of "reframing." The default descriptors associated with virtues or faults so often reinforce the societal prejudices that, if asked, a person using them would disavow. It's a worthwhile, if long-term, goal to get people to think again about what they are saying. If not here, on boards loaded with progressive-minded people, then where?

Please PM me if you ever decide to form a DU group to foster this kind of reframing here or elsewhere. As I said, it's a good cause, if a long-term one.

[Just Me]

3. Greenspan existed to serve a "function",...NOT HUMANITY.

His FUNCTION was to make his bosses' economy "look good".

That was his ONLY function.

He gave soft-spoken warnings and has hidden his surprise and concern with soft-spoken advice.

However, his job has NEVER included anything concerning advancing the best interests of the American people.

So,...just keep the foregoing in mind with respect to Greenspan. He was a CYA for whomever his boss was at any time.

[liberalnurse]

6. Maybe because I'm such a Democrat, I never noticed

it during the Clinton years......we were so profitable and in the black......He probably was just as bad then, but didn't see it happening when things were good.

[Yavin4]

17. Greenspan Baited Clinton and The Democrats Into A Trap

At the very start of Clinton's presidency, Greenspan met with him and promised Clinton that if he got the deficit down, he'd keep interest rates low. Well, the Democrats in congress went along with the deficit reduction plan, and it cost a lot of them their seats. Meanwhile, Greenspan reneged on his deal. He constantly raised interest rates throughout Clinton's presidency.

Then, to make matters even worse, he spat in the face of congressional leaders who had finally brought fiscal sanity back to Washington when Greenspan endorsed Bush's tax cuts in early 2001. Also, while the deficit has been careening out of control, Greenspan has kept interest rates historically low. As a result, we have tons of borrowed money with no means of paying it back. That's why the world is turning its back on our dollar. No one will loan you anything if you don't offer something of value in return.

The crash of 2006 will be laid at the doorsteps of Alan Greenspan and Bush.

[DeaconBlues]

25. I loved how Greenspan hiked interest rates about ten times before the

2000 election in order to cool the economy and help pave the way for Georgie. I'm surprised that Soros is just figuring out what a prick Greenspan is.

[scarletlib]

28. I couldn't agree with you more.

He knew what he was doing and he betrayed this nation. (Yes, I will call him a traitor) He betrayed this nation for an ideology and the monied class.

[Demeter]

30. Exactly!

The on again, off again recession that ended the Clinton second term was entirely due to Greenspan raising rates inappropriately.

The Depression that followed was entirely due to Bush's buddies and their stock frauds that collapsed--which Greenspan did nothing to prevent--Irrational exuberance, my eye! Clear dereliction of duty there.

[Cha]

5. Didn't gates jr. and his ilk help

keep the bushgoons in power?

[VegasWolf]

7. Greenspan is a whore of any admin that will keep his scrawny ass

in power.

[spotbird]

9. Soros needs to buy a media outlet or two.

And he is clearly right about Greenspan, but it doesn't matter.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Ain't it funny ...

The Federal Reserve Bank is a private financial organization that controls the American currency; and, by extention, the reserve currency of more than half the world, including OPEC.

As a private organization, it is allowed to be as political as it wants to be.

It's also funny that Alan Greenspan was once an economic Free-Enterprise fundamentalist, a part of Ayn Rand's little clique. But not as funny as him assuming control of the nation's money.

I'm not sure the term "whoredom" can describe this. It rises to the level of ... "Neo-Conservatism". (The old-fashioned Conservatives have bgeen complaining about the Fed since before WWII.)

--p!

[cliss]

12. The word prostitute still applies here.

I was just about to explain the nature of the Federal Reserve, but you did me the favor. Thankx.

Alan Pondscum NEVER needed to kiss Bush's ass. He had his own vast kingdom, and he was not dependent on them for approval ratings. He has (note here: had) a sterling reputation that was above reproach.

If anything, BeelzeBush should have kissed Greenslime's butt. The Fed is supposed to be politically independent. That's how it was designed. The world's oldest profession.:smoke:

[CHIMO]

23. Seems That He Is Still Following

The Ayn Rand formula. Don't think that there has been any change.

[sweetheart]

13. greenspan's gettin' old

He's coming to scotland next week, and you can see him in a church in
fife where adam smith once spoke. He's coming to get an honourary
degree from the University of Edinburgh. That alone should be enough
of an omen... a man of his tenure, wanting to walk in the footprints
of adam smith for a moment, and get some recognition from the old
country. Frankly, it sounds all a bit fragile and sad, not the great
currency guru in his greatest power, but a man broken in his career
scraping up bits of something else to feel better as things fall apart.

I was thinkin of going to see his lecture, but why. I have a feeling
he'll have a humbling revalation in that scottish church, faced by a
bunch of common folks who don't know him except some man from america
they might have heard of a few times. If you want to hear him talk,
the church is mentioned in the london times, St Brycedales's in Kirkaldy
(pronounced "keer kaad eee").. sunday 6 feb.

That he has to walk in adam smith's footsteps rather than his own is
humiliating given what he could have achieved. I wish him well, and
i'm sorry it worked out that way. He's a brilliant man and could have,
had he the spirit of john gault, been a bit more than a republican
side kick.

[Yavin4]

16. Hey Soros! Stop Stealing From My Posts!!!

I was bashing Greenspan when bashing Greenspan wasn't cool. Oh the arguments that I have had with people about Greenspan's politicization of interest rate policies.

[54anickel]

19. Greenspin has been a pretty much worthless shill the entire 17 years

he's been Fed Chairman. Here's just one of the latest articles that puts in a few "digs". I liked this article as it's pretty much in line with the thoughts I've always held on Greenspin.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/01/07/cx_da_0107topnews.html

snip>

Writing in an upcoming issue of Foreign Policy, Roach says that when Greenspan steps down as chairman of the Federal Reserve next year, he will leave behind a record foreign deficit and a generation of Americans with little savings and mountains of debt. Americans, Roach says, are far too dependent on the value of their assets, especially their homes, rather than on income-based savings; they are running a huge current-account deficit; and much of the resulting debt is now held by foreign countries, especially in Asia, which permits low interest rates and entices Americans into more debt.

The "economic brink" line is from the headline of a press release sent by Foreign Policy. In an interview this morning, Roach said, "That's a little extreme." He does admit the nation has prospered on Greenspan's watch. Still, he does not disavow the haymakers he directs at the chairman's chin.

"This is no way to run the global economy," Roach says. So far, the Fed has bucked the odds, Roach adds. But the longer the situation exists, the more chance there is that it will spell danger for the United States and the world.

Roach lays the blame for the peril at Greenspan's door. But first he takes out after his outsized reputation. Greenspan is not responsible for defeating inflation in the 1980s; Paul Volcker, his "tough and courageous predecessor," deserves more of the credit, Roach says. Greenspan's monetary policy deserves some accolades for the 1990s boom, but former President Bill Clinton's fiscal policy and other factors were equally responsible, Roach says. Greenspan may deserve some praise for softening the recession that followed the stock market meltdown, Roach concedes, but the chairman's cure may result in "bigger problems down the road" and "the biggest bubble of all: residential property."

more...

[autorank]

24. Greenspan (--) Rubin = Disaster. New Economic Axiom.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

20. Leaving Soon?

How old is Greenspan? Would it surprise anyone if he cut and ran, just as interest rates were on the rise? The problems will start later this year after another few increases, so it's a good time for him to bail out of a leaking ship.

[Rainscents]

21. Greenspan is leaving 2006

thank goodness!!! He is doing nothing but harming this country!

[twaddler01]

26. too bad

it isn't sooner...

[girl gone mad]

27. I think we would need a microscope to locate..

Greenspan's "sphere of competence".

[Algorem]

29. Michael Jackson!Michael Jackson!

Iraqis voting!Bawk!

[indepat]

31. Greenspan has lost far more than his creditability IMHO.