Product Description

No matter who you are-investor, trader, homeowner, 401(k) holder, or CEO-you are bound to feel the impact of Alan Greenspan's “Age of Ignorance” for years to come.

According to MSN Money columnist William A. Fleckenstein, Greenspan's nearly 19-year career as Federal Reserve Chairman is even worse than anyone imagined. Labeled “Mr. Bubble” by the New York Times, Greenspan was nothing less than a serial bubble blower with a long history of bad decision-making. His famous “Greenspan Put” fueled the perception of a Goldilocks economy-but, as this explosive exposé reveals, the bear has finally caught up with Goldilocks.

Using transcripts of Greenspan's FOMC meetings as well as testimony before Congress, this eye-opening book delivers a timeline of his most devastating mistakes and weaves together the connection between every economic calamity of the past 19 years:

• The stock market crash of 1987
• The Savings & Loan crisis
• The collapse of Long Term Capital Management
• The tech bubble of 2000
• The feared Y2K disaster
• The credit bubble and real estate crisis of 2007

Fleckenstein explains just how far-reaching Greenspan's mess has been flung, and presents damning evidence that contradicts the former Fed chief's public naiveté concerning shifts in the market and economy. He also points to a disturbing fact, that throughout his career, Greenspan not only made costly mistakes, but made the same ones-over and over again. And not only was he never able to recognize or admit to those mistakes, he constantly rewrote his own history to justify them.

Greenspan's Bubbles offers a lock-stock-and-barrel portrait of a flawed but fascinating man whose words and actions have led a whole generation astray, and whose legacy will continue to challenge us in the years ahead.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5160 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-16
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR

GREENSPAN'S BUBBLES

“After reading Greenspan's Bubbles you will have no respect for the Fed! It's a must-read…in it, the authors demystify the belief that the Fed 'solves' problems when, in fact, it is directly responsible for a colossal destruction of wealth of the median household and of the U.S. currency through its irresponsible monetary policies.”-Marc Faber, editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report

“Greenspan for Mt. Rushmore? Not if Bill Fleckenstein has anything to say about it.”-James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer

“In his typically engaging style, Bill Fleckenstein pops the Greenspan bubble…presenting compelling and convincing evidence that the former Fed chief got us into this mess...”-Herb Greenberg, Senior Columnist, MarketWatch.com

About the Author

William A. Fleckenstein is president of Fleckenstein Capital, a money management firm based in Seattle. He writes a daily Market Rap column for his Web site, Fleckensteincapital.com, as well as the popular column Contrarian Chronicles for MSN Money.

Frederick Sheehan is a former Director of Asset Allocation Services at John Hancock Financial Services. He has written for Marc Faber's Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, Whiskey & Gunpowder, and the Prudent Bear Web sites.

Customer Reviews

Fist Fight?
The book appears to contain a few things of substance, but you have to look so hard to get past the vitriole it's almost not worth the effort. I'm not a big Greenspan fan and certainly not his apologist, but Fleckenstein appears to be pissed beyond reason. I get the impression Fleckenstein thought he should have been appointed Fed Chair and hasn't gotten over it yet. If Greenspan was as imbecilic as Fleckenstein tries to paint him, he wouldn't be able to find his way to the men's room without a GPS. Come on Fleck, get over it. You've got something to say. Could you possibly say it without all the name calling and innuendo. Why not take Greenspan out on the playground and you two can duke it out? Take a deep breath. Count to ten. Have a glass of wine.

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention
It's taking me a long time to read this because I become so angry that I have to put the boook down. This well-documented collection of mistakes at the highest financial levels, and the following "spin", demonstrates that the bigger the job, the more likelihood of error, and the greatest likelihood is that the person in charge maintains arrogant ignorance and shovels it out to the unsuspecting public.

The Mystery of Alan Greenspan
In fall 1999, six months before tech stocks went into free-fall, the bestselling book "The Internet Bubble" was published. In it, the authors described how the financial foodchain of entrepreneur, venture capitalist, investment banker, and public stock speculator created the tech bubble. The authors also did the math to show how grossly over-valued Internet companies were.

For most of this rampant speculation, Alan Greenspan was enabling the process by expanding the money supply and cutting interest rates. The authors of "Greenspan's Bubbles" document, in Greenspan's own words, why they think the Chairman was doing this. Greenspan's utterances--especially those behind the closed doors of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) that the authors were able to access up until 2001--prove, the authors say, that it was because Greenspan drank the "new economy" Kool-Aid and thus didn't think there was a bubble.

Other critics feel that Greenspan's statements, both private and public, were merely a cover to try to maintain the legitimacy of the Fed as long as possible....

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2405#poststop

Readers will have to decide which theory they find most feasible.