Free market is “insufficient”
From no smaller free-market horse than Alan Greenspan, we learn what most of us already knew – Greed trumps all.
Greenspan said he had made a “mistake” in believing that banks in operating in their self-interest would be sufficient to protect their shareholders and the equity in their institutions. Greenspan said that he had found “a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”
Imagine that. Free marketeers forgot to account for basic human greed in modeling how the world works. That kind of explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Or, as Henry Waxman put it:
“Our regulators became enablers rather than enforcers. Their trust in the wisdom of the markets was infinite. The mantra became that government regulation is wrong. The market is infallible.”
I guess Milton Friedman wasn’t so smart after all.
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October 24th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
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