Greenspan Downplays Fed's Role In Subprime Mortgage Crisis

By Justine Rellosa-Talk Radio News Service

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan conceded Wednesday morning before a hearing with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) that he had made mistakes throughout his career, but denied that the Federal Reserve Board played a significant hand in the subprime mortgage crisis.

“Remember that the Federal Reserve Board is a rule making [agency], it is not an enforcement agency," said Greenspan, who served as chairman from 1987-2006. "We did not have the capacity to implement the types of enforcement that the FDIC, [Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Justice] has."

Greenspan explained that external factors played more of a role in the collapse of the housing market than the subprime mortgages themselves.

"Origination of subprime mortgages - as opposed to the rise in global demand for securitized mortgage interests - was not a significant cause of the financial crisis," said Greenspan.

Noted the 84 year old Greenspan, “I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong 30% of the time. There are an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years.”

Greenspan declined to speculate on what he could have done differently.

"Figuring out what you should have done differently is a really futile activity because you can’t...in the real world, do it."

Rep. Barney Frank Optimistic Over State Of U.S. Economy

By Meagan Wiseley - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Friday that on the economic front, America received good news and bad news today following the Labor Department's announcement of a 10.2% unemployment rate.

“Although 190,000 more American’s lost their jobs...that is substantially less than the pace at which they were losing jobs until fairly recently,” Frank said during remarks at a conference sponsored by NoLimits.org, a progressive on-line organization founded by Frank's sister.

Frank said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or the stimulus bill, had a positive impact in deterring unemployment, explaining that unemployment rates would be higher if the stimulus bill hadn’t passed.

Frank also said that the lack of regulation in the financial sector, which he contributed to Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, led to the AIG crisis and the following recession. He praised the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke for his willingness to collaborate with Congress over new financial regulatory reforms.

Frank remained positive about the economic outlook.

“We are making progress ... things are getting better virtually on every front [and] I am confident that when we are through with financial regulations...the kind of things that got us in trouble in the past won’t get us in trouble in the future,” Frank added.

Greenspan: Regulating Banks Was A Failure

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

Billions of dollars used in the federal bailout of financial institutions was a mistake,said Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan today in D.C. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute, Greenspan said that the ‘Too Big To Fail’ doctrine used by the Bush and Obama Administrations was seriously flawed.

“Earlier this decade,” said Greenspan, “it was widely expected that the next crisis would be triggered by the large and persistent US current-account deficit precipitating a collapse of the US dollar. The dollar accordingly came under heavy selling pressure” when the euro-dollar exchange rate rose starting in spring 2003.

“A financial crisis is characterized, in fact defined by an abrupt, discontinuous break in asset prices. But discontinuities are, of necessity, a surprise and that requires that the crisis be largely unanticipated by market participants. For, were it otherwise, financial arbiters would have diverted it,” said Greenspan.

In March, in light of the failure of Lehman Brothers and the rescue of AIG, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed a plan to set a systemic regulator which would oversee the entire financial system and would prevent certain banks and nonbank financial firms to collapse financially. The plan would give the authority to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation the authority to bail out or liquidate failing banks or firms.

Greenspan said that “it is one thing to identify firms whose collapse might severely impair financial intermediation; it is quite another to identify institutions whose failure will lead to systemic breakdown. Systemic risk is readily identifiable. Potential systemic failure is not,” he said.

For Greenspan, the role of shareholders is important to explain the current financial crisis. “In Capitalist societies, we need shareholders to govern,” said Greenspan. “But their perspective has become increasingly that of investors, not owner-managers. When dissatisfied with corporate performance, they tend to sell their shares rather than seek to change management.”

“Of all the regulatory challenges that have emerged out of this crisis,” Greenspan views “the ‘too big to fail’ problem and its precedents, now fresh in everyone’s mind, is the most threatening to market efficiency and our economic future.”

Financial crisis is 'like a Tsunami'

"The list of regulatory mistakes and misjudgments is long, and the cost to taxpayers and our economy is staggering," Chairman Henry Waxman said at the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the financial crisis and the role of federal regulators.

Testifying was Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Christopher Cox, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and John Snow, former Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush.

Greenspan highlighted that in 2005 he had raised concerns that the protracted period of underpricing of risk would have dire consequences. Greenspan went on to say that even though he raised concerns about possible financial problems, he could not have imagined it to be as broad as it was. "The financial landscape that will greet the end of the crisis will be far different from the one that entered it little more than a year ago. Investors will be exceptionally cautious. Structured investment vehicles and other exotic financial instruments are not now, and are unlikely to ever find willing investors. Subprime mortgages will also be on that list, this market for which has virtually disappeared," Greenspan said.

Greenspan flip-flopped on issues surrounding regulations in banking institutions and what he had previously stated. In previous interviews, Greenspan had stated that he believed it should be left up to the banks to regulate and not the government. Waxman asked Greenspan if he still thought it was a good idea to let the banks regulate instead of having the government step in. "I was partially wrong with saying that banks should regulate themselves. The problem I'm having is that I still don't understand fully how this crisis happened and why it happened. When the facts change, I will begin to change my view," Greenspan said, commenting on Rep. Waxman's questioning.

Cox said that he thinks one of the reasons why the crisis happened was because a lot had changed since 1999 and the time of the Clinton Administration. "Credit default swaps were just emerging in 1999, but now they are between 10 to 15 percent of the financial institutions, and one of the main issues surrounding the financial crisis," Cox said.

Snow believes that if Congress would have done more in 2005, the financial crisis may be completely different. He said that with a "stronger regulatory set in place back then, and if our Government would have gotten more involved with the issues surrounding credit default swaps, taxpayers would be looking at the economy differently today."

One statement all three panelists and Chairman Waxman agreed on was that the crisis will pass and America will reemerge with a far sounder financial system. Chairman Waxman concluded with the statement that he hopes to further these investigations, and find a "clear cut reason why all of this happened."