Matthew Yglesias: Alan Greenspan bank capital: A fraud: Noted

Alan Greenspan bank capital: A fraud

I'm a little surprised to find myself saying this, but I think David Dayen's managed to be too soft on Alan Greenspan.... It's on the "thin regulation" front where Greenspan's new media push is driving me nuts. He's out essentially preaching the Gospel According to John Cochrane in which the actually existing Dodd-Frank financial regulation overhaul is a pointless increase in the regulatory burden, and really the entire crisis could and should have been avoided by imposing stiffer capital requirements (i.e., less borrowing) on the financial sector. This rather conveniently ignores the period in history—a period that began in 1987 and didn't end until 2006—when Alan Greenspan was the most important bank regulator in America.

Who was letting banks lever up so much? Greenspan! Who was happy to see the growth of a "shadow banking" sector outside the ambit of traditional regulation? Greenspan! It's as if Richard Nixon wrote a book about how tougher security at the Watergate Hotel could have avoided a lot of problems for America.... His latest work is entirely focused on the worst aspects of his record. That's starting with this shocking hypocrisy on bank capital and continues with his ludicrous musings on Social Security and the national savings rate which are written as if he wasn't... arguing in 2001 that we needed large tax cuts in order to avoid the budget deficit becoming too low.