Now that Alan Greenspan is Free to Speak the Truth, He is Doing So

Amazingly accurate commentary from a man who loved to hide his thoughts in shadows as Fed head.  It makes me wonder if these people in public eye play dumb, and sing the company line while knowing the dark truth all along... or are truly clueless.  Not sure which is more evil in fact.

Any reader who has been with FMMF for more than a matter of weeks will see these words parallel much of what we have been saying.

• Former Federal Reserve Chairman Akan Greenspan said the slowing economic recovery in the U.S. feels like a “quasi-recession” and the economy might contract again if home prices decline. 

---------------------------------

Bravo for these next words; it's a recovery of the large multinational business and well off individual* (which increasingly is dominating consumption as the middle class is drowned); small business can be damned as they don't have a lobbyist arm that matters.  Hence little say in government handouts. Even the investment banks say so in hushed whispers of their research reports [Sep 7, 2009: Citigroup 2006 - America, A Modern Day Plutonomy]

In a "plutonomy", according to Citigroup global strategist Ajay Kapur, economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.

*ex public sector, which has thus far been largely immune.  [Sep 8, 2009: The True "Middle Class"]


Greenspan:

• “Our problem basically is that we have a very distorted economy,” Greenspan said. Any recovery has mostly been limited to large banks, large businesses and “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.” 
• “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,” Greenspan said. 

The legacy of a few decades of 'trickle on down economics' perhaps?

---------------------------------

As for those green shoots?

• “There’s nothing out there that I can see which will alter the trend or the level of unemployment,” Greenspan said. 

How about a census every 6 months?

[Aug 14, 2009: No New Normal Say Some Economists, Prosperity Without Jobs?]