A long farewell

I dread the last year or so of Alan Greenspan's tenure at the Fed before he retires in 2006, assuming he doesn't ascend to heaven before then in a cone of light. Otherwise, we're stuck watching him shuffle in slow motion to the exit like that geezer Tim Conway used to play and listening to him mutter his fubsy equivocations as elected officials and a bovine press cling to his ankles begging him not to leave. What will we do without your guru wisdom? your guidance? No one in the history of public service has woven a thicker aura of bogus infallibility than Greenspan, which is why hail to Senate Democratic minority leader Harry Reid for blurting the bitter truth and calling Greenspan "one of the biggest hacks we have here in Washington."

It's one thing for Republicans to canonize Greenspan. He's their guy, a fundamentalist believer in the free market solution (a disciple of Ayn Rand, after all) who played coy when asked if he would have supported Social Security when it was first proposed. Of course, he would have opposed it, just as conservatives dream of dismantling it now. But as Dave Lindorff wrote in Counterpunch:

"Any Democrat who still offers praise for Alan Greenspan after his latest propaganda supporting the Bush attack on Social Security should be dumped by the party and voters alike.

[...]

"His pronouncements on the financial stability of the Social Security system are no more prescient or sound than his economic forecasting skills, which have been repeatedly found wanting."

Alan Greenspan, pompous hack. Harry Reid, blunt hero.
  James Wolcott post

Alan Greenspan and the Pope - two tightly wedged icons of ultra conservative global policy and power, hand-in-hand economics and religion - will be gone within a year. I'm going to take that as the sign of a new dawn. Ding, dong, the witch is dead. (If not, I could become too depressed to continue.)