Alan Greenspan: Two Economies
“Our problem, basically, is that we have a very distorted economy in the sense that there has been a significant recovery in a limited area of the economy amongst high-income individuals who have just had $800 billion added to their 401(k)s and are spending it and are carrying what consumption there is. Large banks, who are doing much better, and large corporations, whom you point out and the–and everyone’s pointing out, are in excellent shape.
The rest of the economy, small business, small banks, and a very significant amount of the labor force, which is in tragic unemployment, long-term unemployment, that is pulling the economy apart. The average of those two is what we are looking at, but they are fundamentally two separate types of economy.”
-former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, Meet the Press
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Fascinating quote from Easy Al on Meet the Press via Bloomberg. It has 3 subtexts that might not be readily apparent — until we break it down:
1) Extend the Bush tax cuts on highest bracket earners: Since its the 401(k) crowd that are carrying the recovery, Greenspan suggests, then we best not crimp the income of these big spenders
2) Two Americas: Greenspan seems to be channeling John Edwards when he discusses two economies. The bailouts reduced competition. They extended the life of badly structured financial firms, and forced smaller firms to scramble.
3) Greenspan’s Legacy: It seems that Easy Al can figure out precisely what he has wrought. The secret to getting such candor out of the former Fed chief is to trick him into discussing the broader economy. That way, he does not realize that he is discussing the effects of his tenure as FOMC chair.
Of course, Greenspan is still wrong on Housing. Recall that he failed to recognize the impending housing correction (collapse more accurately) and made claims that the worst was behind us — just as housing was accelerating downwards:
“If home prices stay stable, then I think we will skirt the worst of the housing problem. But right under this current price level, maybe 5, 7 or 8 percent below is a very large block of mortgages which are underwater, so to speak, or could be underwater, and that would induce a major increase in foreclosures. Foreclosures would feed on the weakness in prices, and it would create a problem. So that–it’s touch and go.”
One last thing: I have to give Greenspan credit for this touch of tax cut honesty:
“Look, I’m very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we’ve gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day, that proves disastrous.”
For once, I agree with him . . .
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Previously:
Greenspan sounds optimistic note on housing: report (Oct. 7, 2006)
Greenspan on Housing Bottoms (April 10, 2008)
Yet Another Greenspan Housing Bottom Call (May 13, 2009)
Sources:
Meet the Press transcript for August 1, 2010
Mike Bloomberg, Alan Greenspan, Ed Rendell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mark Halperin MSNBC, 8/1/2010 1:12:55 PM ET
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38487969/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts
Greenspan Says Drop in Home Prices Might Bring Back Recession
Joshua Zumbrun
Bloomberg, Aug. 2 2010
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aUb4ukA88agU
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August 2nd, 2010 at 7:30 am
“One last thing: I have to give Greenspan credit for this touch of tax cut honesty:”
Lets be clear. A major reason the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 was the support of Alan Greenspan. And lets be clear, the whole reason we’re dealing with the expiration of the tax cuts is because had Republicans attempted to make them permanent, they wouldn’t have passed.
August 2nd, 2010 at 7:48 am
Greenspan: WHY wouldn’t this dumb-ass ideologue just shut the heck up and go away? I do not recall seeing Volker on TV after he “was” retired.
And WHY do we even listen to Greenspan? Y2K, housing, interest rates, taxes – his forecasting track record is worse than one of a tic-tac-toe’s chicken!
Greenspan is not only one of the worst track records when it comes to predicting and misdiagnosing major economic events, he has actual track record of harming this country. And now he’s writing Op-Eds and goes on TV. From “Greenspan commission” that effectively robbed social security recipients, to his support for the unfunded tax cuts, to refusing to regulate the regular and the “shadow” banking systems, to the 1 % interest rates – he’s done more to create a severe and lasting damage to the economy that anyone else! (of course, the 30k ultra-rich families plus Wall St. bankers will disagree)
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:28 am
Greenspan is like a guy who stabs his wife in the bedroom, walks into the kitchen and can’t figure out why dinner isn’t ready
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:31 am
Greenspan is right for once. We have two economies and a massive miss-allocation of capital. The haves don’t know what to do with all the money they have parked, while the other 90% are struggling to make ends meet. Until we make sure our political and socio-economic system becomes geared to benefit everyone and not the privileged few, our economy is going no where fast. Banks, corporate America and the wealthy have trillions of dollars parked…yes parked and doing nothing, while we can’t seem to get Main Street out of the gutter…how is that working out?
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:32 am
I find it fascinating that the answer to all our problems seems to be to “give the rich more tax cuts.” This man is fiscallt, morally and intellectually bankrupt
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:46 am
I also agree with AG… and the ‘two economies’ problem is the biggest issue in the US today. A consumption-based economy simple cannot function without a strong middle class. Never has, never will. Since we are now becoming a have/have-not country, the fundamentals of how things work also changes.
Jobs that went overseas will never come back; illegals are necessary to make construction and agriculture work; benefits must be extended to provide housing, health care and even food to a growing percentage of WORKING citizens; a two-income family is a necessity. You can go deeply in debt for what is essentially a hyped-up trade school education and you will never be able to pay it back with the earnings it gives you access to.
That’s the new US of A.
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:48 am
this: “2) Two Americas: Greenspan seems to be channeling John Edwards when he discusses two economies. The bailouts reduced competition. They extended the life of badly structured financial firms, and forced smaller firms to scramble.”
couldn’t be more *true.
but, there is a certain beauty in it, no?
along the lines of: “You gotta Love it, when a Plan comes together.”
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the type of Economic bifurcation, that has been well underway, used to have a Name: “Feudalism”.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bifurcation
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/feudalism
&, as a note: What we think of as ‘consumers’ are, actually, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Helot
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am
are we going to enjoy feudalism?
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:14 am
are we going to enjoy feudalism?
Isn’t that the thing that involves the Hatfields and the McCoys?
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:23 am
Looks like the road to serfdom isn’t even going to be paved — http://tinyurl.com/2933utu — but that appears to be part of the big picture: Building new roads would create jobs for the little people and then shops might line those roads offering more work yet and how’s a respectable baron supposed to live quietly in his castle with all that hustle and bustle among the peasants going on?
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:35 am
sounds all right to me. I’m getting damn tired of being all PC. There must be a least a couple of million unemployed that are also tired of being on the outside, of being told they are too damn lazy. There is not much that holds us all together at the best of times and watching your kids starve will do wonders for a guy’s desire to participate in society in the fullest possible extent.
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:39 am
I”d like to further on the topic of “two economies” by stating that this might just be the end result of our social system in this country. It’s not unavoidable, but it’s sort of moving things back to a “natural” state. Some of you will disagree, but it is government’s most likely choice of outcomes, rather than allowing the non-working pieces of the economy to fail (Ibanks, risk takers), this government would rather prop up those parts, thus giving them an unfair advantage that other, “lesser” parts, of the economy don’t have. Allowing people like Paulson to testify before our nation that the failure of these excessive risk takers would cause the failure of us all was a stab in the back of the nation.
So, by propping up that part of the economy, and with declining tax revenues, it doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that we had to borrow from somewhere to make that happen. And that borrowing was essentially the future of the middle class, at one time, our largest class.
The problem with this return to a natural state (haves and have-nots, nothing in between), is that the have-nots will start to outnumber the haves, and the drain on national resources will become too great to overcome. Unless this nation reinvents itself, and innovates again, as a producer, as a society, we are watching a slow death, if you ask me.
Apologies if that seemed over-dramatic!
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:49 am
Points 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive.
Point 1: He advocates keeping Bush’s tax cuts for the rich (which have cost us $3 trillion so far), but they must be paid for.
Point 2: The only way to fix “Two Americas” is to spend more on programs to create economic opportunity, such as education and infrastructure investment. Or at the very least, we can’t fix “Two Americas” by slashing spending on these programs, which is exactly what we’re doing.
Greenspan hasn’t reformed at all. Either you can have Point 1–keep the tax cuts but pay for them by cutting spending on Point 2. Or you can have Point 2–fix “Two Americas” but pay for it by ending the Bush tax cuts.
You can’t have both.
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:50 am
Interesting that Jed Babbin mentions the NeoCon/GWB “spend, spend, spend” disease as a problem in an essay on today’s American Spectator. (Most of the article has to do with the Afghani Fail.)
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:00 am
there is little evidence Greenspan knew anything about banking, derivatives, financial accounting, or bank supervision, or what he knew was wrong, worth less than zero. One piece of proof is even now he thinks of the recent as no more than a statistically “extremely rare event” So because “we” were shocked and surprised, we need to raise bank capital, ( as if he knew what that was, within 3% pts of a banks debt).
He is however a real good macro economist. So data obsessed he runs in his head a version of a big macro model, ( he never understood how to model either). Combined with a truly unpleasant personality, a new york version of say lace curtain irish trying to fawn on his bettors, the CEOS and financiers, and affect an accent.
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:06 am
Feudalism – not a bad analogy. There’s not much of a middle class in it, at least in the way a middle class is commonly viewed today. From the Wiki entry:
“Three primary elements characterized feudalism: lords, vassals, and fiefs; the group of feudalism can be seen in how these three elements fit together. A lord granted land (a fief) to his vassals. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism.
Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. During homage, the lord and vassal entered a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command.
Fealty comes from the Latin fidelitas and denotes the fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. “Fealty” also refers to an oath that more explicitly reinforces the commitments of the vassal made during homage. Such an oath follows homage. Once the commendation was complete, the lord and vassal were now in a feudal relationship with agreed-upon mutual obligations to one another .”
Sounds much like the Republican party, particularly the Bush concept of “loyalty.”
And from MEH’s link: “The system broke down gradually. It was not completely destroyed in France until the French Revolution (1789).”
Well, at least we know where we’re headed.
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:15 am
The previous piece highlighting David Stockman’s blame of everyone but himself, combined with this placing the spotlight on a man who deserves to live out the rest of his life ignored in darkness (yet puzzlingly is still sought out for his opinions everywhere), has made me think that perhaps a new section in The Big Picture ought to be initiated.
Call it Failed Helmsmen, for those who have steered the economy onto the reefs. Perhaps you can seek out the Captain of the Exxon Valdez, and have him describe the pink elephants he was so desperately attempting to avoid.
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:46 am
My offer to build the gibbets we’ll need still stands.
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:50 am
Greenspan “failed to recognize the impending housing correction?” He did recognize it… the way Mr. Magoo would have.
“Nearer term, the housing boom will inevitably simmer down. As part of that process, house turnover will decline from currently historic levels, while home price increases will slow and prices could even decrease. As a consequence, home equity extraction will ease and with it some of the strength in personal consumption expenditures. The estimates of how much differ widely.” – August 2005
The width of possible estimates was beyond anything he should have made an effort to imagine.
A month later…
“Nonetheless, it is difficult to dismiss the conclusion that a significant amount of consumption is driven by capital gains on some combination of both stocks and residences, with the latter being financed predominantly by home equity extraction.
If so, leaving aside the effect of equity prices on consumption, should mortgage interest rates rise or home affordability be further stretched, home turnover and mortgage refinancing cash-outs would decline as would equity extraction and, presumably, consumption expenditure growth. The personal saving rate, accordingly, would rise.
Carrying the hypothesis further, imports of consumer goods would surely decline as would those imported intermediate products that support them. And one would assume that the U.S. trade and current account deficits would shrink as well, all else being equal.
How significant and disruptive such adjustments turn out to be is an open question. Nonetheless, as I have pointed out in previous commentary, their economic effect will, to a large extent, depend on the flexibility inherent in our economy. In a highly flexible economy, such as the United States, shocks should be largely absorbed by changes in prices, interest rates, and exchange rates, rather than by wrenching declines in output and employment, a more likely outcome in a less flexible economy.”
Now, about that “flexible” US economy… a month later…
“Historically, banks have been at the forefront of financial intermediation, in part because their ability to leverage offers an efficient source of funding. But in periods of severe financial stress, such leverage too often brought down banking institutions and, in some cases, precipitated financial crises that led to recession or worse. But recent regulatory reform, coupled with innovative technologies, has stimulated the development of financial products, such as asset-backed securities, collateral loan obligations, and credit default swaps, that facilitate the dispersion of risk.
Conceptual advances in pricing options and other complex financial products, along with improvements in computer and telecommunications technologies, have significantly lowered the costs of, and expanded the opportunities for, hedging risks that were not readily deflected in earlier decades. The new instruments of risk dispersal have enabled the largest and most sophisticated banks, in their credit-granting role, to divest themselves of much credit risk by passing it to institutions with far less leverage. Insurance companies, especially those in reinsurance, pension funds, and hedge funds continue to be willing, at a price, to supply credit protection.
These increasingly complex financial instruments have contributed to the development of a far more flexible, efficient, and hence resilient financial system than the one that existed just a quarter-century ago. After the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000, unlike previous periods following large financial shocks, no major financial institution defaulted, and the economy held up far better than many had anticipated.
If we have attained a degree of flexibility that can mitigate most significant shocks–a proposition as yet not fully tested–the performance of the economy will be improved and the job of macroeconomic policymakers will be made much simpler.”
Well, he did use “If” and admitted the flashy and fancy flexibility of the US economy had not been “fully tested.” It got a D minus.
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:24 am
It’s hard to argue about feudalism. It has all the benefits of slavery with none of the overhead. One of the parties could readily breach the contract. Guess which one.
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:37 am
You got to give the old fool credit that he still have the agility to bend himself into a pretzel, to make the argument that he and his rich friends should be given a tax-cut. Standard GOPster cr@p; he has the conclusion and just need to bend facts and arguments until they fit with it. But at least he has enough intellectual honesty to admit that cuts should not be funded by borrowed money. Then we just need him to pony up and admit that it means no tax cuts at this time (with a trillion dollar budget deficit).
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:52 am
That this country is based on the consumer, not the producer is the same failure as Rome found itself.
Overextended.
We built industries in the 1800′s, and 1900′s: that was the source of our wealth.
We excelled in science, engineering, medicine, and it paid handsomely
Are all the world problems solved?, and we need no more innovation?
Who will solve them?
Solutions to energy, food, disease problems of the world are the currency of the next boom.
Not 3-d movies, navel grazing, fine clothes wearing B.S.
If we invest in McMansions or Gucci shoes, or fancy sport cars, we are sure to be doomed
ughhhhhhhh!
The idiocy of the leaders of this country, both elected and in Business are sickening!
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Democracies extract more from their workers than any medieval lord.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Instead of fuedalism, I’d rather say things are converging on a resemblance of the Antebellum South–a highly stratified society of a great few very rich planters; multitudes of slaves at the bottom to create the wealth enjoyed by the planters, and a fair number of yeoman farmers somewhere in the middle, barely scratching out a living from what soil remained after the rich planters took the best.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:34 pm
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Since its the 401(k) crowd that are carrying the recovery, Greenspan suggests, then we best not crimp the income of these big spenders
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Greenspeak: “Since my policies totally screwed the middle class, they won’t be participating in this recovery.”
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Why are we still talking about this guy?
Thanks Reagan, for bringing us Greenspan, Arthur Laffer and all the other magical wizards.
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Greenspan quote:
“…spending programs with borrowed money [and] tax cuts with borrowed money [are both] disastrous.”
Greenspan has been misquoted in the MSM and elsewhere. He didn’t say that raising taxes would solve our problems.
August 2nd, 2010 at 2:43 pm
The problems of America are not difficult…save one. The problems of America are not even mildly challenging…save one. The problems of America are nothing the Chinese wouldn’t gladly exchange us for…save one. The solutions to America’s problems, like all good problems, requires us to challenge ourselves to exercise our minds and ones bodies just as one does in football, basketball, or soccer. And like sports it would be invigorating…even fun. Only one problem prevents us…
Our wealthy elite, our pampered princesses and princes, have become a venal lot whose slightest exertion is covered in the press as proof of Herculean effort. However, disproportionate their share of the national wealth becomes, the uber-wealthy always shamelessly cry out for more. That is our burden, our pampered princesses and princes have taken over the running of the government and lacking any real world experience, or even contact with the real world, they operate it’s levers of power guided by a religious/economic thought that defines them as infallible deities. Think of a four year old child piloting a 747 over the skies of New York, the machine is mighty and capable, but the child is ignorant and does not understand the consequences of it’s actions. This is the burden we operate under, by allowing wealth to move ever upward we create a ruling class of children, who have been cocooned from the ramifications of their behavior.
For all it’s failings, America was not ever so, IKE was a Republican and he taxed and spent to create a better world for us, economically he was far to the left of the last…lets say….seven presidents. With the exception of women’s rights, I haven’t move one inch in my political beliefs since High School, I was considered right of center back then, today I am considered wacko left. I recall in high school being called a fascist by a famous Newsweek columnist because I said Ford’s pardoning of Nixon didn’t change a thing and saved us a long drawn out trial that would acomplish nothing. I was not “liberal” then and I am not now, what has changed through careful media manipulation is our perception of what works…and that which is moral.
As I said yesterday, “I remember watching Freidman’s preaching in an [often repeated] 12 part series, with one hour long segments preaching the religion of tax cuts for the rich and the impoverishment of government re-making it into the tool of large moneyed interests.” And so it has come to pass. I remember the high priest of this impractical immorality saying how much “better our lives would soon be if we followed his corporately amplified pipe music”. I remember Freidman as “he ignored Argentina” who had a priori “followed his tax advice in the early 1900’s and suffered a massive fall in national wealth and stature.”
My criticism Freidman fanatical religious/economic views is not partisan politics, his ideology was clearly rejected by Eisenhower, who had seen the benefits of a mixed economy and had himself engaged in Keynesian stimulus. I’m certain that General Eisenhower, having personally seen how ineffectual government was in the late teens & 20′s under Milton’s religious/economic antecedents, would have been immune Milton Friedman’s cry’s for a return to 19th century economics. Republicans of toady, seem to be wholly unaware that they hold an ideology that is foreign to their re-emergance under IKE.
Further, to those that claim partisan politics, I say nonsense, both parties now espouse Milton’s degenerate economic religion of selfishness and greed for those who have given the least, while strangling the middle and working class. Milton is a worm who crawled into the American apple and has rotted it from inside, not since slavery has the American body politic been so parasitically poisoned by such an immoral and impractical religious conviction.
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Ok, I understand sensationilism gets hits but hasn’t Greenspan done enough wrong that you don’t need to intentionally give the wrong inpression about his view?
Greenspan said he believe in tax cuts, BUT NOT WITH BORROWED MONEY! How does this get taken to mean he wants to extend the Bush tax cuts? He certainly has in the past, but to read the discussion now it appears as though he has learned from his mistake in this regard. He wants the tax cuts ONLY IF THEY ARE AFFORDABLE. In this context it’s implied that he doesn’t want the Bus tax cuts renewed now, but would be in favor of them at a later time when the government’s fiscal house is in order.
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BR: By “wrong impression, do you mean “exact quotes?” Cause those are from the transcript as to what he actually said.
You are forgetting that Greenspan, as Fed Chair, lobbied for the tax cuts with borrowed money. That is the broader context.
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Actually, he proved to be a very poor macroeconomist, and almost certainly never had a macro model running in his head. He never had sufficient understanding of the discipline as the Fed research divisions began moving away from macroeconometric forecasting models (of the type that Macro Advisors still use) to the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models (DGSE) that now dominate. By the end of his tenure, the Fed solely relied on an analytic technique for which the last 2.5 years was simply impossible, but which the macroeconometric models could adequately capture. The only model running in AG’s head was the mantra that markets are self-correcting.
August 2nd, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I uunderstand that Greenspan lobbied for the cuts in the past, I’m certainly not trying to defend the guy, but his exact quote on the cuts was taken out of context. Yes, he said he would be in favor of the tax cuts but not with borrowed money. Now, whether he’s simply trying to salvage what’s left of a damaged reputation is debatable, but he wasn’t lobbying on behalf of the cuts in the current interview. I simply think there are a multitude of things we can pile on Greenspan for, so many in fact that we certainly don’t need to read into every statement looking for something else.
August 2nd, 2010 at 6:42 pm
“Look, I’m very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we’ve gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day, that proves disastrous.”
Bush ran up increasing deficits for 8 years doing exactly what Greensputum criticizes here but Easy Al was OK with the mounting Bush deficits – it wasn’t until failed airman Bush put the economy into a nose dive and handed controls to O’Bama that Al recognized these problems “IN RECENT YEARS”.
He should be tarred & feathered for what he’s done to this country.
August 2nd, 2010 at 6:52 pm
The country club Republicans played the Reagan Democrats like a banjo promising prosperity for small businesses, small banks, the “little guys” while they propered with their buddies Big Banks and Big Businesses. And the Big Banks continue to prosper thanks to the generosity of the US taxpayer as distributed by Ben Shalom, Turbo Timmy and Hank “Sunday Night” Paulson and big businesses proper on the back of massive unemployment & outsourcing.
The sad thing is I still don’t think these “Joe the Plumber” types have a clue how they’re being violated financially by the CCRs and are swallowing the thinly disguised racist garbage being spewed by Republican haters.
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:16 pm
BTW: As folks who were Downsized and thrown out by our Corporation in Early 90′s we so much appreciated Felix W. Zulauf’s OWN HISTORY of being a person who “tried to tell the truth” and paid some price for it. He went out on his own (as we had to do in the same time period) and managed to make a sucess of it for himself and his family.
That part was long and many here might not have understood what he went through….but your older readers will understand and those of us who survive these days (without debt) can certainly relate to him.
I liked his “Early Years” in the First Interview…but, understand it would seem long and irrelevant to some of your younger readers who have a different time frame for the world as “They Know It,” and therefore some who read your blog might have skipped over it.
Unfortunately or Fortunately, I’ve seen the Decades more from Zulauf’s perspective as an overview than many of those who came of age in this TRADING ENVIRONMENT/HYPE. We were downsized, whistle blowers, corporate climbers and all of that during the years that Zulauf was building his business.
We, also, had to build a business based on what we lived through. It’s very different these days…but some fundamentals that he talks about would still seem to be some “model” that one can learn from him.
It was good you included the “Early Years.” It gave a perspective missing from most interviews and reports in our “faced paced media” these days.
Just had to add that…..
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:44 pm
I live in South Florida and there is perhaps no greater example of this situation than going to Mizner Park and the Boca Hotel, and then going back to Coral Springs where I live, which used to be a highly populated and successful place is slightly less populated and much less successful. The reason likely being because most of the people living in the Parkland/Coral Springs area were involved either in Real Estate or highly successful small businesses. A building company that built a country club in the area was bankrupted by that action because only a fraction of those many homes were sold. On the other hand, over by Mizner, there are still a great many people driving Ferrari’s and eating at Ruth’s Chris. Undoubtedly because of ties with big businesses and banks.
Check out this related article
http://www.philstockworld.com/2010/08/02/another-manic-monday-greenspan-finally-agrees-with-me/