WASHINGTON (FMLiveWire) -- Alan Greenspan says blame him for the American housing disaster and the latest mess in financial markets here and throughout the world.
The former Federal Reserve chairman said his critics who argue that he caused the crisis by cutting interest rates for three straight years "are perfectly right."
"It was my job to start another investment bubble in the American financial system to make the rich richer and shaft the middle class again," Greenspan told CBS 60 Minutes in an interview. "We all knew it would inevitably collapse as is happening now."
Home prices are plummeting throughout the USA as foreclosures and bankruptcies soar. The crooked mortgage lending also packaged loans into toxic and worthless mortgage backed securities and other asset backed securities which were sold around the world disguised as AAA bonds.
Now this worthless paper is collapsing pension funds, undermining mergers and the stock markets, and even eroding US government bonds and the US dollar which is rapidly falling in value.
Greenspan said he recognized all along the fraudulent housing lending practices which gave homebuyers loans with low adjustable rates that could jump to bankruptcy levels were serious enough to damage the economy and the US dollar.
"I was aware that these practices were going on, so I got the hell out of the Federal Reserve before it all hit the fan," he admitted.
The latest disaster is just one of many such collapses Greenspan caused during his 18-year reign as Fed chief, such as the dot-com and tech bubbles which also ended badly.
"But this is the big kahuna this time and we are all going down the tube," Greenspan concluded. "Just wait until the multi-trillion dollar mountain of financial derivatives explode. OMFG!"
--Copyright Felix Minderbinder Live Wire
