Greenspan admits role

The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo., on former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan’s recent appearance before Congress:

It was former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan’s turn last week.

He appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and was grilled about his policies and philosophic underpinnings during the 18 years he was the Fed’s chairman.

Indeed, during that time, he championed low interest rates and little regulation of the complicated derivatives markets.

Housing crash

Now we know that those policies drove the lending practices that ultimately led to the housing crash and the wave of defaults that have brought the world’s financial system to its knees, wiping out trillions of dollars of wealth in the process.

We’ll say this for Greenspan: He didn’t back away from acknowledging his role in the crisis.

We happen to think there’s plenty of blame to go around, some of it possibly of a criminal nature. We’re not sure, though, what grandstanding congressmen have to offer that is constructive, or that will help get us out of the biggest economic crisis the country has faced in more than 70 years.