Free Republic

Remember the concept “Owning a piece of the American Dream?” That goal you had when you graduated from college to eventually own your own home? Well, some recently released statistics suggest that, although the percentage of homeowners in our nation is at an all-time high, the preponderance of interest-only and home equity loans is creating a society of baby boomers that might never actually achieve this dream. Maybe even more concerning is that these home “lessees” don’t seem to mind. As reported by The Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/content/homes/re_news/story/12425263p-13281615c.html "‘Folks paying off their loans and owning their homes free and clear is...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR TODAY marks the fifth anniversary of the peak of the great millennial stock market. What were you doing when the lights began to dim? Were you a bull or a bear? Rich or otherwise? What about today? Are you inoculated against the new alleged sure things? Or perhaps you believe in the permanent hegemony of the dollar in the world's currency markets? In the inevitability of rising house prices? Or of falling interest rates? Answer true or false: the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is clairvoyant. From the March 2000 top to the October 2002 trough, the...

Questioning the wisdom of Alan Greenspan in political Washington is akin to challenging the integrity of the pope in Rome, so figures in both parties agreed yesterday that the top Senate Democrat's description of the Federal Reserve Board chairman as a "political hack" was a blunder. But Democrats said the accusation by Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) reflected a real frustration in the minority party with Greenspan. Even before Reid's attack, Democrats say, they have been changing their view of Greenspan from one of an above-politics wise man to the Republican partisan he had been in the 1960s and '70s....

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) talked a tough game last month as he attempted to play the Tom Dachle role of obstructionist. His plan appeared to be to fly in under the radar and criticize the president and his policies without having to stand behind his own words. That failed miserably when the RNC released a 13-page document to more than a million people - including in Reid's home state of Nevada - analyzing and criticizing his votes and stances before he officially took over as Senate Democratic leader in January. Harry Reid then cried uncle, calling on President Bush personally...

Reid Calls Greenspan A "Political Hack": Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid: "[I]'m Not A Big Greenspan Fan ... I Voted Against Him The Last Two Times. ... I Think [Alan Greenspan's] One Of The Biggest Political Hacks We Have In Washington." (CNN's "Inside Politics," 3/3/05) Reid Was In Superminority Twice In Voting Against Greenspan: In 2000, Reid Was One Of Only Four Senators To Vote Against Greenspan's Nomination. Only Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Tom Harkin (D-IA), and the late Paul Wellstone (D-MN) also voted against the Greenspan nomination. (Greenspan Nomination, CQ Vote #6: Confirmed 89-4: R 50-0; D 39-4,...

In an era when Washington policymakers have been splurging on Social Security surpluses while increasingly resorting to blue smoke and mirrors in their budget accounting, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan offered a brief lesson in reality-based arithmetic when he testified Wednesday before the House Budget Committee. Mr. Greenspan was asked to enumerate the consequences for interest rates and the economy if the deficit-generating budget impasse that has characterized policymaking for the past three or four years were allowed to continue.

WASHINGTON, March 2 - Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, warned today that federal budget deficits are "unsustainable" and urged Congress to consider both spending cuts and tax increases as possible solutions. In his gloomiest assessment yet about the government's budget outlook, Mr. Greenspan warned that annual shortfalls were "unlikely to improve substantially in the coming years unless major deficit-reducing actions are taken." The Fed chairman emphasized that his strong preference was to reduce the deficit through spending cuts rather than tax increases. But he insisted that Congress needed to offset the costs of making Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent....

There’s a reason why they call Alan Greenspan the Maestro. In testimony to the Senate Finance Committee last Wednesday, the Fed chairman offered a compelling endorsement of President Bush’s Social Security reform with personal accounts that was both powerful and thoughtful, both persuasive and nuanced. What was Paul Krugman’s reaction in his Friday New York Times column? You won’t be surprised: According to America’s most dangerous liberal pundit, Greenspan “has betrayed the trust placed in Fed chairmen, and deserves to be treated as just another partisan hack.” This isn’t the first time Krugman has called Greenspan a “hack.” That’s...

President Bush traveled to New Hampshire, continuing his "educate America" plan regarding Social Security reform. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan spoke before the Senate Banking Committee hearing, urging a go-slow approach on personal Social Security accounts, saying that while he embraces the idea central to President Bush's proposed overhaul, he is concerned about stability in financial markets. [I translate this to be good news.] Dr. Rice testified in the Senate regarding the Secretary of State's budget. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island!

The US dollar rose to a three-month high against the euro on Monday amid further signs that market sentiment is warming towards the greenback, temporarily at least.The dollar moved markedly higher in US trade, with dollar bulls pointing to the unveiling of the US budget for fiscal year 2006, which reiterated President George W Bush’s intention to begin dealing with the burgeoning fiscal deficit.However while this appeared to be evidence of the “voice of fiscal restraint” alluded to by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in a keynote speech on Friday, the budget contained little new.Paul Mackel, currencies strategist at...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan paid tribute on Sunday to the father of modern economics, saying that 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith was "a towering contributor to the development of the modern world." Greenspan, who this month began his final year as Fed chairman, delivered the Adam Smith Memorial Lecture at Fife College in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, where the early proponent of free-market capitalism was born in 1723. "In his 'Wealth of Nations,' Smith reached far beyond the insights of his predecessors to frame a global view of how market economies, just then emerging, worked," Greenspan said in...

One of the most important political issues that will be debated this year is how to prevent the inevitable insolvency of our Social Security system. Although it is difficult to know which "experts" to believe when it comes to applying a date to the event, the majority of credible sources I've managed to find expect the system to begin paying out more money annually than it takes in within the next 20 years, if things continue unchanged. Dorcas R. Hardy believes that Social Security will become insolvent by as early as 2018, and if this former S. S. Commissioner is...

The ME generation refuses to acknowledge that there is a looming problem with the Social Security system. Are you tired of all the Social Security discussions that have been flooding the air and print waves the past two weeks? Having a hard time understanding the plethora of opinions -- some good, some bad -- being thrown at you from all directions by people who seem to know what they are talking about, but are spewing venom the likes of which you haven’t seen since either the last presidential debate or the most recent episode of The Apprentice? Well, get used...

OLD JOESen. Joe Lieberman has already turned down two jobs offered by President Bush, so why not go for a trifecta? Lieberman again tops a list of folks being considered for head of the new national intelligence directorate, a job that Lieberman might actually have to seriously consider. He smartly turned down the Homeland Security chief job, and the U.N. ambassadorship just wasn't big enough for him, even if he would have been given an opportunity to work on the Middle East peace process a bit. But Lieberman did take on a large role in shaping the national intelligence legislation,...

In the fifth tightening of US monetary policy in as many meetings, Alan Greenspan and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the Federal Funds Rate target 25 basis points to 2.25%, as expected. More...

The White House used the front page of Monday's Washington Post to cashier a Cabinet member. A story headlined ``Bush to Change Economic Team'' said: ``One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long.'' Obviously the office will need filling before ``very long.'' The president should fill it with Alan Greenspan. He has headed the Federal Reserve System under four presidents -- since August 1987. Now he is needed elsewhere. Historian Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland's biographer, said Cleveland's problems ``never came as spies but as battalions.''...

WASHINGTON - While President Bush is busy putting together his Cabinet for a second term, the financial world's attention is on a job vacancy 14 months away: Who will succeed Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan? It might seem daunting to follow a legend like Greenspan, now in his 18th year in the job. Yet there seem to be plenty of people who would like to do it. The list of candidates being talked about in Washington and on Wall Street is half what it was before the Nov. 2 election, when prominent Democrats such as former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks fell modestly Friday as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan sounded a warning over the nation's spiraling trade deficit. Wall Street paid close attention to Greenspan's unusually frank assessment of the trade imbalance and its effect on the U.S. economy. The Fed chairman said the economy was resilient thus far, but would be vulnerable to foreign influence should the deficits continue to build.

In the fourth tightening of US monetary policy in as many meetings, Alan Greenspan and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the Federal Funds Rate target 25 basis points to 2.00%, as expected. More...

First of all, Oil is up to $55 a barrell. Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan disagrees with me that excessive consumption of oil is a problem that we must face sooner rather than later. He says this: "The impact of the current surge in oil prices, though noticeable, is likely to prove less consequential to economic growth and inflation than in the 1970s." However, Alan Greenspan warned that the risk of more serious negative consequences would intensify if the oil prices were to increase to "materially higher" levels. Greenspan expressed his optimism regarding the world being able to adjust to the...