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"Mr. Greenspan said that he sat through innumerable meetings at the Fed with crack economists, and not one of them warned of the problems that were to come. By
by muerdeme 17y ago
"Mr. Greenspan said that he sat through innumerable meetings at the Fed with crack economists, and not one of them warned of the problems that were to come. By Mr. Greenspan’s logic, anyone who might have foreseen the housing bubble would have been invited into the ivory tower, so if all those who were there did not hear it, then no one could have said it.
As a nation, we cannot afford to live with Mr. Greenspan’s way of thinking. The truth is, he should have seen what was coming and offered a sober, apolitical warning. Everyone would have listened; when he talked about the economy, the world hung on every single word."
Instead of expecting Greenspan to see exactly what Burry saw, wouldn't it be better if we didn't have a single point of failure? In the absence of Wall Street's reliance on the Fed, Burry's insurance plays could have further pushed up prices and signaled to everyone else that something was wrong.
- cma 17y agoWill a Bursting Bubble Trouble Bernanke?: The Evidence for a Housing Bubble November 2005, Dean Baker and David Rosnick http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/will-a-bursting-bubble-trouble-bernanke-the-evidence-for-a-housing-bubble/ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/will-a-bu... (Baker has papers going back to Oct 2003 on it)
- natrius 17y ago"In the absence of Wall Street's reliance on the Fed, Burry's insurance plays could have further pushed up prices and signaled to everyone else that something was wrong." Can you explain this point further? How did Burry's investments not raise the prices of credit default swaps? What does Wall Street rely on the Fed for that led to that result?
- joelhaus 17y agoThis is precisely what needs addressing. CDS are over the counter trades without a central clearinghouse. Therefore little data is available and the counter parties create terms blindly. This is what they mean when talking about transparency.