Of course it’s not possible to blame any one individual for the current meltdown of the global financial system. After all, scandal and speculation are as old as capitalism itself. Greed drives the price of everything from roses and real estate to unsustainable levels, then all panic at once and head for the exit at the same time. But surely no single individual is as closely identified with the current financial collapse as Alan Greenspan. He did, after all, preside over the US economy for two decades, helping to usher in an era in which financial speculation became ever more divorced from what was happening in the real economy of jobs and production.
A Republican appointee from Ronald Reagan’s last term, Greenspan co-existed well with the conservative, deregulatory economic policies of the Clinton Democrats (shaped by current Obama advisor Robert Rubin). But he only fully flowered when George Bush's neocons brought in a programme of market über alles. Tax cuts for the rich, runaway military spending, a vast deficit and a boom in financial profits fuelled by an explosion of unstable credit: the writing was on the wall if you cared to read it.
