格林斯潘对未来政经的看法

henry

Greenspan's Dismay
Extends Both Ways
By GREG IP
September 17, 2007; Page A3

WASHINGTON -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan spent much of the past 40 years as an influential economic adviser to both Republicans and Democrats, but today feels estranged from both. News coverage of his memoir has focused on his criticism of Republicans for forsaking their small-government principles. But in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Greenspan expressed just as much dismay with the Democratic Party.


Mr. Greenspan, a self-described libertarian Republican, said he was "fairly close" to President Clinton's economic advisers -- Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers and Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman. "The Clinton administration was a pretty centrist party," he said. "But they're not governing again. The next administration may have the Clinton administration name but the Democratic Party...has moved...very significantly in the wrong direction," he said, referring to the Democratic Party's populist bent, especially its skepticism of free trade.

Mr. Greenspan told CBS's "60 Minutes" in an interview broadcast last night that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is "unquestionably capable" and "very smart," but, still, his "tendency would be to vote Republican." Yet in his interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said he isn't sure how he will vote. "I doubt if I would vote Democrat," he said. "I just may not vote. At the moment it's extremely hard to say.

"I'm saddened by the whole political process, and it's not an accident that Republicans deserved to lose in 2006 -- it wasn't that the Democrats deserved to win," he said. "When it came time to rule, all of a sudden their ratings collapsed, and the reason they collapsed is they're just as negative as the Republicans."

In the Journal interview, Mr. Greenspan also said he had put the odds of a national decline in housing prices at less than 50-50, at least until a couple of months ago, based largely on the experience of Britain and Australia. His book notes that in both countries, home prices, after sustained booms, have "leveled out or declined slightly, but at this writing have not crashed." But he says he has become less optimistic since his book was finished, when it became clear the construction industry was unable to reduce the number of housing starts below the rapidly falling level of home sales.

There is now a "very large" inventory of unsold, newly built homes whose condition is deteriorating more rapidly, than, say, a steel mill's, and that puts pressure on builders to sell them quickly, he said. As a result, "we have the capability of far bigger price declines," which will pinch home equity, lead to more defaults on subprime mortgages and pressure consumer spending. The probability of a recession, which earlier this year he put at one-third, is now "slightly more than a third," he said.

Mr. Greenspan was appointed Fed chairman by President Reagan in 1987 and served through early 2006.

"I was brought up in the Republican Party of [Barry] Goldwater. He was for fiscal restraint and for deregulation, for open markets, for trade," Mr. Greenspan said in the interview. "Social issues were not a critical factor. The Republican Party, which ruled the House, the Senate and the presidency, I no longer recognize. It's fundamentally been focusing on how to maintain political power, and my question is, for what purpose?"

He also expresses puzzlement over Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's continued advocacy of antiterrorism policies that have the effect of curtailing civil liberties. If there had been additional terrorist attacks in the U.S. after Sept. 11, 2001, he said, "Cheney's and Bush's view would be now far more prevalent" in the U.S. But "when events changed, they held the views that they previously held." He adds that while he doesn't like their stance, "I don't know what should have been done otherwise" because he lacks the access to classified information that they have.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney said he "has enormous respect for Alan Greenspan and considers him a good friend. He looks forward to reading the book."

Mr. Greenspan was himself a behind-the-scenes advocate of overthrowing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He says he felt "getting Saddam out of there was very important," not because of weapons of mass destruction, but because he was convinced the Iraqi dictator wanted to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which a sizable portion of the world's oil passes. That would enable him to threaten the U.S. and its allies. He said he conveyed that view to both Mr. Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, another friend from the Ford administration, but doubts that played a part in the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq.

He recalls one administration official telling him such an argument couldn't fly politically, which Mr. Greenspan assumed to mean because of Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's background in the oil industry. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing on ABC's "This Week," rejected the assertion in Mr. Greenspan's book that the Iraq war "is largely about oil." Mr. Gates said, "it's about stability in the Gulf. It's about rogue regimes trying to develop weapons of mass destruction."

[ 本帖最后由 henry 于 2007-9-17 20:02 编辑 ]

henry

格林斯潘是共和党人.

xboy

这么 长一段。。就翻译 成了 一句。。

经典。！

henry

呵呵, 如果是翻译的话，其实是半句话，完整应该是：格林斯潘是共和党人，现在在说共和党坏话。

xboy

格老 20年 不敢讲多少 真话。。

估计 憋坏了。。。

water

政治游戏而已，打下一个备受争议的布什，再推上一个新姿态的总统，仍然是资本代言人。