5.20.2010

Greenspan: I wasn't really paying attention to how much leverage banks were using

Great. "The Maestro" was really Mr. Magoo. The man in charge of micro-managing the entire U.S. economy had no clue what was going on:
Peter Whitney: [0:49:04] Peter Whitney at Duke University. Could you comment on (if I'm correct about this) the SEC regulation in 2003 / 2004 that greatly allowed an increase in leverage at financial firms, if I'm correct on that? From about 12-to-1 to 30-to-1 or something like that, 33 1/2 [-to-1]?

Alan Greenspan: [0:49:24] There are a lot of SEC regulations which I'm aware of. I'm vaguely aware of numerous ones, and I specifically would be reluctant to comment on things about which I know very little.

Click on over to Housing Doom and read the whole thing about our favorite serial killer saying, "What, me worry?"

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