Today’s quote is from Alan Greenspan, former Fed Chairman and the guy who was supposed to be so smart but evidently completely missed the housing bubble that was growing dangerously during his tenure. It’s from a book out later this month from The Penguin Press, “The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting.”
There are several things I find entertaining about this quote, here’s just two. One is that some of us have been making the point for a very long time that we’ll never get to policy reform until we get political reform. Two is that Greenspan seems to think that guys like former Sen. Robert Bennett are the kind of men we need more of — when, in fact, it was decades of Bennett types that put us in this mess.
“Our highest priority going forward is to fix our broken political system. Short of that, there is no viable long-term solution to our badly warped economy. In America we are being pulled apart politically in ways unrivaled since the aftermath of the 1929 crash. …
My first realization of a striking shift in our politics was brought to my attention by the staunch conservative three-term senator from Utah, Robert Bennett. He feared that despite his strong approval ratings, his 2010 reelection bid was by no means secure. In his 2004 reelection, Bennett won 69 percent of the vote. His problem, as he stated it, was unexpected contenders for his Senate seat from his political RIGHT. [The 18-year veteran finished third at the Utah Republican convention and his seat is now held by Sen. Mike Lee, an instigator of the effort to shut down the government over Obamacare.]
It was my first awareness of what later came to be known as the Tea Party, a political movement that emerged in 2009 and became a powerful force in the 2010 election.”
