Comments (30)

• Bogart

  Not a chance. Greenspan has spent the last couple of months denouncing the market place and wanting even more controls placed on it.

  I am sorry but the central bank-central government soon to be world bank-world government alliance is a whole lot tougher to defeat than just one Sith Lord.

  The reason is simple. Once the Sith was defeated that branch of evil died. But once the USA Sith Lorder Bush was defeated, another Sith equally as destructive jumped in his place.

  Published: May 11, 2009 8:39 AM

• Matthew

  Didn't Ayn-i Rand Kenobi once refer to the young jedi as "her man in Washington?"

  Published: May 11, 2009 8:43 AM

• Ken

  @Matthew, that's funny right there.

  Published: May 11, 2009 8:49 AM

• George

  Greenspan isn't only to blame, if not him then it would be someone else. He was hired to be head of the Fed (head of the con) and he performed that role. We're the Fed, we "control inflation" and print money...

  In Greenspans book, The Age of Turbulence, there's a passage on page 297 where Greenspan describes his debate with Li Peng and Greenspan told Li Peng that the US tried price controls (under Nixon) but learned that they don't work and learned not to do them.

  This conversation was during the period when Greenspan was head of the Fed and controlling US interest rates....
  

  Published: May 11, 2009 8:58 AM

• College Parasite

  There's a lot of passages in Age of Turbulence that, by themselves, make Greenspan sound like a free market advocate. But that's misleading. Even Keynesian and neo-classic economists have a few sound free-market principles, but they contradict themselves at the point they assume they know better and should have access to the power of the state to *make* better. Greenspan is typical in that respect. What makes his case particularly bad is that he wasn't indoctrinated with such an inconsistent view since the beginning of his career, like most economists are - he fell for it *after* having seen the light.

  Published: May 11, 2009 9:07 AM

• Conza88

  Murray N. Rothbard = Yoda
  Ron Paul = Luke Skywalker

  Haha? I should probably re-watch the films.

  Published: May 11, 2009 9:10 AM

• dewind

  On a side note, Ayn Rand was featured on the Simpsons yesterday around 22 or 25 minutes into the show. They used the fountainhead as the basis for their comical routine.

  They referred to Ayn Rand as a right-wing loser. Being that is the Simpsons I do not know if they were being facetious or direct.

  Published: May 11, 2009 9:29 AM

• J Cortez

  The article and accompanying picture are awesome, but I think there's some differences between the two. While both are traitors, Vader, while being a strange half-man, half-machine amalgam, still had some type of features a living being would have. Unlike Vader, Greenspan seems to have no animus, no spirit, no soul.

  Rothbard once said Greenspan had, "All the charisma of a dead fish." I think it goes deeper than that. I see Greenspan as a sort of undead zombie bureaucrat, droning on and on, without any sense of real purpose or direction and reflexively feeding on the flesh of anything that happens to be in his vicinity.

  Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

  Published: May 11, 2009 9:45 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  Alan Greenspan: mere cognitive dissonance or was he seduced by the Dark Side?
  

  Published: May 11, 2009 9:51 AM

• Dr. Mark Thornton

  Here is the theory of the dark side:

  http://mises.org/daily/1818

  
  What is the "Dark Side" and Why Do Some People Choose It? - May 13, 2005

  Published: May 11, 2009 10:01 AM

• Terry Crossman

  great article and wonderful comments, am not going to add more than just thanks to all and a particular thank you to Dr. Thornton for the links to your earlier articles.

  Dan, I am long term resident in Beijing and lived previously in HK for 12 years. I really like what your foundation is up to. (will e-mail you).

  Published: May 11, 2009 10:19 AM

• Ohhh Henry

  I think Ron Paul recently said that when he asked Greenspan to autograph a book containing Greenspan's famous essay praising gold and denouncing central banking, Greenspan told him he still very much stood by his opinions. Can anyone else locate this quote or youtube?

  Which leads to the obvious question of why he behaved the way he did.

  Supposedly Greenspan the central banker tried to manage the money supply by sneakily pegging it to the price of gold, but then (evidently) political pressure resulting from various shocks such as the Peso crisis etc. caused him to capitulate and fire up the printing press. If he still remembered his essay then perhaps he was telling himself, ok, if you want to blow up your fiat money sooner rather than later, I'm happy to help you do it. Yet none of his comments in the last few years, other than his remark to Ron Paul, would lead one to think that this was in his mind.

  I conclude that Greenspan is a moral and intellectual shambles and that government employment made him so.

  Published: May 11, 2009 10:31 AM

• Helen Hubbard

  It was Qui-Gon Jinn that discovered Anakin Skywalker not Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was Qui-Gon Jinn that thought that Anakin was "the one".

  Published: May 11, 2009 10:39 AM

• Horst Muhlmann

  I don't know. Greenspan looks more like Dark Helmet than Darth Vader. :)

  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/

  Published: May 11, 2009 11:08 AM

• Lucas M. Engelhardt

  This article is worth it, if only for the images...

  Published: May 11, 2009 12:14 PM

• (8?»

  Logically, Rand and Greenspan were/are both nothing but power hungry agent provocateurs, willing to create a coherent vision of voluntary cooperative human relations, only to run it down the dead-end road of Objectivism, smashing it into incoherency.

  In other words, they were both suicidally "shooting the messenger," in order to help kill off capitalism for the Marxists who empowered them.

  This is evidenced currently by Greenspan apologizing for being too "free-market oriented" during his market manipulation days at the helm of the Fed, in not doing enough to rein in derivatives and other financial WMDs.

  Published: May 11, 2009 2:22 PM

• RTRebel

  Greenspan: "Ron, I am your father"

  Paul: "That's not true, that's impossible! You brought massive inflation, and undermined the dollar!"

  Greenspan: "Look in your wallet! You know it to be true!"

  Paul: "Nooooooo!!"

  Greenspan: "Join me, and together we can destroy the executive branch and rule the global economy as father and son!"

  Paul: "I'll never join you!" (falls into the abyss, starting the Ron Paul Revolution)
  

  Published: May 11, 2009 2:31 PM

• David Spellman

  Dan, you don't know the power of the dark side. Greenspan had a price, and he sold out. Unlike fairy tales and science fiction, in real life there is no turning back.

  He would have an accident or commit suicide before he exposed his masters as the puppeteers. Like the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like but you can never leave--alive.

  Published: May 11, 2009 3:14 PM

• B Green

  If one aspired to become John Galt and cause the wheels of the welfare state to grind to a halt so that a free market and sound money could rise from the ashes what of all possible positions in the world would that person put himself in?

  If one had such an aspiration and attained the position of Chairman of the Federal Reserve what actions might he or she take?

  Of those theoretical actions intended to bring about the end of the welfare state and fiat money which coincide with the actual actions taken by Alan Greenspan during his tenure?

  I don't take this seriously but I find it to be an entertaining exercise.

  Published: May 11, 2009 4:50 PM

• JoeC

  @B Green: The answer to those questions is simple. "I dunno, who's Alan Greenspan?"

  Published: May 11, 2009 6:05 PM

• B Green

  JoeC

  Nice.

  Published: May 11, 2009 6:29 PM

• thesprot

  Could not disagree more with the article.
  Darth Vader, remember was prophecised that he would bring balance to the force. Greenspan is more like Exar Kun. Born to be evil, and rule over the galaxy.

  Kun was a young jedi, fascinated with the dark side. He was arrogant and powerful. The force was so strong with him, that when he walked the ground around him shook. He fought and defeated his master and set forth to master the dark side of the force. Kun is credited with the revival of the Sith Empire. Before his death he made sure he and his work would live long after. He exterminated an entire race, so his spirit could live on. He was born evil, lived evil and after his death 4,000 years later he came back to torment the republic again.

  Sith lord Alan has made sure that the Central bank galactic Empire continues unchallenged. He has passed his knowledge to his student in according with the Sith tradition. The only thing we can be sure of is that the student ( Darth Ben Bern Ake ) will defeat the master and become Sith lord himself, even more evil and more twisted by the dark side of the ink.

  Published: May 11, 2009 11:37 PM

• xbones

  In reviewing his "General Theory", I said that Lord (!) Keynes was a Sith Master. The Light Side of the Force seeks Peace and Balance in the long run. The Dark side seeks achievements in the short run, resulting in chaos and evil in the long run. This reminded me of monetary policy.

  The market represents the Light Side of the Force (no single power, harmony of rightly understood interests). Government is evil because it is always a disturbance of the Force equilibrium.

  Take a government office, and the Dark Side will seduce you.

  Jedi X'Bones

  Published: May 12, 2009 12:07 AM

• xbones

  It is nice to meet a scholar of the Force. But I would say that the prophecy Master Keynes (Lord Plagueis?) invented was that the central bank will restore the balance of the economy.

  May the Force be with you, Jedi Thesprot.

  Jedi X'Bones
  

  Published: May 12, 2009 12:18 AM

• thesprot

  Thank you jedi Xbones.
  I try my best to learn the ways of the light side of the force, here at Master Mises Temple :).

  Published: May 12, 2009 8:05 AM

• JoeC

  Cmon xbones and thesprot, you've got to at least consider the possibility that Darth Greenspan set the reactor core of the Death Star (i.e. the Federal Reserve) into overdrive circa 2001, then quietly hopped in his TIE fighter in 2006 and retired to Naboo to watch the Empire explode and crumble from afar.

  I'll also point out how amazingly exposed the reactor core was.

  Published: May 12, 2009 9:05 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  In spite of being a frequent guest and friend of Ayn Rand's, there's very little evidence to show that Greenspan ever considered himself to be an Objectivist. This, of course, just adds to the mystery of Greenspan, instead of clarifying it.

  Published: May 12, 2009 9:47 AM

• Franklin

  Greenspan?....
  And all this time I thought that was a bad picture of Rick Moranis.

  Published: May 12, 2009 7:35 PM

• Friedrich

  I do not think that especially the comments at
  http://mises.org/daily/1818 is ritght. In the end it's nearly alway FUD spreaded by those "presumed" to know or well claiming they "know". So Greenspun just gave in and added to FUD. He did not want to be the one who was supposed to destroy the US captialism or whatever you like to name it.

  He just wanted that everything just runs smoothless, at least as long as he was the FED chief. Did he really have to take this job?

  If he was convinced of the gold standard how comes he allowed such low intereste rates. If he would have "valued" money how does it come he has made it that cheap.

  It was Fear. He was afraid not doing it would result in a mess, now we see what he did lead to this mess. May he stick to what he've done for that? Well hardly.....
  

  Published: May 13, 2009 1:16 AM

• matt

  You can either be an economist or a policy advisor… By moving around the world I have avoided that corruption which government
  service regularly involves. And more sadly, I have seen in some of my closest friends and sympathizers—I won’t mention any names—who completely agreed with me, how a few years in government corrupted them intellectually and made them unable to think straight… All myfriends who have gone into it and stayed for any length of time have,
  in my sense, been corrupted.-Hayek

  Published: May 13, 2009 8:09 AM