The Greenspan Show

The good news about former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's book tour is that it is giving all of us a steady supply of timely commentary, as opposed to his secret private presentations which only partially leaked out to the real world. An article on Reuters entitled "Greenspan says U.S. economic growth slowing" summarizes the latest commentary by Greenspan in an interview on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer":

... Greenspan said on Sunday that the rate of U.S. economic growth was slowing, but the odds of a recession are less than 50 percent.

... turmoil caused by the subprime mortgage crisis was easing and financial markets were beginning to go back to normal.

... Americans should be "cautious" about the economy, but not necessarily nervous.

... the best way of putting it is that the American economy's rate of growth is definitely slowing down ... the odds of a recession are less than 50/50.

... there was not much that lawmakers and the Federal Reserve should be doing to avoid a downturn ... we have a very complex, self-calibrating, self-adjusting economy.

I would forgive him for his secret private presentations to Wall Street firms if only he would just do a one-hour interview every week as well. Fair is fair. That would allow him to earn a healthy income from the secret private presentations and assure that Wall Street firms are not given yet another unfair "edge" over the general investing public.

-- Jack Krupansky