For what it's worth -- (not much)

For so many years, Ayn Rand admirer and the "Oracle" of the Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan, spoke in a distinctively opaque style that sent economic analysts scurrying to parse every nuance, as if he had superior wisdom or at least some insider knowledge.

It turns out he didn't. Perhaps his opacity was merely a camouflage for his not knowing. In retirement, and well after the crisis erupted, he said that he had not seen the financial collapse coming.

How could he not see it?

With only kitchen-table understanding of finances, I knew as soon as I started paying attention to the disaster that any economic boom, which is based on getting rich by betting that your investments will lose money, is doomed. And that is essentially what the whole credit default swap system was.

It's like lending your kids money, and then making a bet with your neighbor that they won't repay the loan.

All you have to do is think about the larger economic system instead of the individual bank or individual investor. And that was supposed to be Greenspan's job.

Now, perhaps hoping to reclaim a bit of respect, he has announced his support for letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire. Yes, those same tax cuts he supported back then.

That's nice -- but is anybody still listening to him?

Ralph