he was a memo the federal reserve board under alan greenspan. he worked a while for george bush in the white house as chairman of the council of economic advisers. and i think you really are two very simple answers. one is simply a failure of imagination. a lot of people have likened this to 9/11, and it is a metaphor that makes me uncomfortable because a lot of people died in 9/11 and this hasn't been that kind of event. there were people who said maybe someday some terrorist will seize an airplane, but really the people who defended our country did not think it possible that someone could commandeered three or four airplanes and fly them into the pentagon and the world trade center. this was a similar thing. it simply didn't occur to the people who were responsible for managing the financial system that so much of the financial system could be built on a single premise, that turned out to be wrong. that housing prices across the united states will not fall everywhere. we might have the balls in one community or another but they wouldn't fall e

so peter, you paint a compelling portrait of alan greenspan as peter pan and larry summers as his lost boys. and there was a slightly different picture. a particularly vicious business cycle that we're in right now. and, of course, he did lay much of the blame in where we are right now on the chicago school of economics write went as an undergrad i might say and some overly complex financial models which aren't working very well. but i do think that he thought the current version of larry summers perhaps like robin williams in the more recent version of hook is now much more grounded. he has a family. he owns a house. and he doesn't believe anymore in pixie dust i'm wondering do we believe your own version of larry summers or do we believe the other? >> i think larry summers has certainly had his views altered by the crisis. and, in fact, at the conference that i was alluding to earlier, he said, if i remember this correctly, he likened it to the impact of the cubin missile crisis on the need for serious nuclear disarmament. so there's no question that larry summers has been frightened

alan greenspan was of course a supporter of and a friend of ann rand. he was in the group of people. in the 1960s, he wrote the fantastic article about how bad debt was and how bad the wang was and confiscating money. it was a wonderful article. we had one session one morning before we were going to banking committee. it was to go in and personally say hello to the federal reserve board chairman because he was getting ready to testify and get a picture with him. i dug out the copy of the objectivist news letter where the original article appeared on the gold standard. so i dug that out. and i took it with me. when i was meeting and i pulled it out. do you recognize this news letter? i recognize that. i handed it and flipped it open to the article. do you remember the article? he said, oh, yes. i said would you autograph this? would you want to add a disclaimer on this? he says, oh whereby no. he said something amazing to me. no, just reread that recently. he fully endorses everything that he wrote back then. now that he's out of being the chairman he sa

alan greenspan was get a supporter of a little group of people in the 1960's. he wrote a fantastic article about how bad the debt was and how bad the central bank was and we confiscate wealth by printing money. it is a wonderful article. we had one session and one morning before orlin to the banking committee and it was to go in and say -- before we go into the banking committee. he was getting ready to testify. i dug up an old copy of the objective newsletter with the original article appeared on the gold standard. a doug that out and took it with a. when i was meeting him, i said, and d recognize suspects i had it and flipped it open to that particular article. he said, yes, i remember that article. i said, would you, autograph this article? he took his pen out and signed it. i said, do you want to add a disclaimer? he said that he read it recently. host: ron paul in september this year. the best nonfiction book 2009 is the topic. nancy, good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas. thank you for c-span. i will put "the soldiers education" as my book.

[laughter] so why would -- even though i have the disagreements with alan greenspan, i would say he was a little more cordial than bernanke. but i write about these stories and repeat some of the conversations i've had with bernanke and greenspan and give you information about that. but the rest of the book deals with we should get rid of the fed and why the fed doesn't deserve to exist, and a pretty important reason although i consider it today under current conditions probably the weakest argument and that is rather sad and that is the constitutional argument. i mean, if i wanted to get somewhere in washington and say that the reason we have to get rid of the federal reserve is because of our respect for the constitution and the constitution hasn't given authority for get it. they don't want to hear that and they would say no, the courts say it's okay. okay. the courts can read write the constitution. .. just canceled the agreement. the government doesn't have to pay in gold because they promised. they just cancel. it the government uses the courts to abuse the contract and stick it t

bernanke said his top priority would be continuing alan greenspan's policies. ben and i have never had a serious disagreement, mr. greenspan said. does anybody seriously believe that with a record like that, that this should be an and reappointed as chairman of the fed? the fed has four key responsibilities. this comes from their web site. to conduct monetary policy in a way that leads to a maximum employment and stable pricing. to maintain the safety and soundness of financial institution. to contain systemic risk in financial markets. and to protect consumers against excessive and unfair financial risks. those are the main activities that the fed is obliged to undertake. to my mind, and i think to the mind of any fair minded person, mr. bernanke as chairman of nbd has failed in every one of these four areas. since bernanke took over, the unemployment rate has more than doubled 317% of our people are either unemployed or underemployed. not since the great depression has the financial system been as unsafe. more than 140 banks have failed since he became chairm

scaap next federal reserve chairman i had some confrontations with and discussion with was alan greenspan and i tell the story about the time i think most of you here in this audience would know the story that alan greenspan of course was a supporter of and friend of ayn rand and was in their group of people but in the 1960's he approached this fantastic article about how bad that debt was and how bad the federal central bank was and we confiscated wealth by printing money. it is a wonderful article and so we had one session one morning before we were going to the banking committee and it was to go in and personally say hello to the federal reserve board chairman because he was getting ready to testify and get a picture with him so i thought i would do that and it had been scheduled so i dug up an old copy of the object of this newsletter where the our original article appeared on the gold standard. so i dug that out and buy a ticket with me and when i was meeting him and i pulled out the shell and said do you recognize this new and he said i recognize that and i'd flipped open to that pa

former fed chairman alan greenspan said on thursday that it is next year. >> why do so -- i think so, too. i am not a hoover righ-ite. we cannot add taxes in the midst of a downturn. we have told focus on long-term debt reduction. this is not a one-year or two- year process. this is a plan that will be multiple-years in duration. it fundamentally changes the trajectory we are on. we will all be the better for it. otherwise, we wait and the longer we wait, the stronger the solution will have to be. >> it will still raise spending. >> no. if you look at what has happened under this administration under this congress, taxes have been substantially reduced, not increased. the spending increases have largely come as a result of the need to provide liquidity to the economy. that is exactly what we should have been doing. we have to help people understand the difference between what makes sense in the short term and what makes sense in the longer term. when your ended sharp economic downturn, -- when you are in a sharp economic downturn, you have to increase debt. in the longer term, you hav

i opposed him because i knew he would continue the legacy of alan greenspan and i was right. i did not know how right i was and could not imagine how wrong he would be in the following four years. from monetary policy to regulations consumer protection. transparency and independents. chairman ben bernanke's time as fed chair has been a failure. we must put an end to his and the federal reserves failures and there is no better time than now. as i said two weeks ago the greenspan legacy on monetary policy was breaking from the taylor rule to provide easy money and thus inflate bubbles. not only did chairman ben bernanke continue that policy, when he took control of the fed, but he supported every greenspan rate decision when when he was a fed governor before becoming chairman. sometimes if you read the minutes of the fed, he wanted to go even further and provide easier money and chairman greenspan. yet at recently as last month chairman ben bernanke continues to deny that fed action played any role in inflateing the housing bubble. as recently as one month ago. on consumer prot

and i believe former fed chairman alan greenspan said that on thursday. do you think next year is important as well? does it have to happen in 2010 this. >> i absolutely do. by that i don't mean that you start taking the steps when the economy is still weak. that would be a mistake. as i've said to my colleagues, i'm not a hooverrite. i don't believe in cutting spending or raising taxes in the midst of a downturn. and we are still in the midst of a downturn. but at the same time i recognize that very soon we have to pivot and focus like a laser on long-term debt reduction. this is not a one or two-year process. this is something that requires multiple years in duration, that fundamentally changes the trajectory we're on. and if we do it we'll all be the better for it. because otherwise you wait and the longer you wait the more draconian the solutions are going to have to be. >> but senator, this congress has been raising taxes and raising spending. >> no. in an overall basis, this congress has been cutting taxes. if you look at what has happened under thi

host: and the to the point about alan greenspan haunting the room? >> absolutely. his comments were as much if not more about greenspan than ben bernanke. one of the reasons ben bernanke is getting a second chance right now is because a lot of people feel that maybe many of the big mistakes being made before this crisis were made by ben bernanke's predecessor. interest rates were held low in the later stages of the greenspan era. more importantly, they took their eyes off ocpáhe regulatory ball. they were not aggressively regulating financial institutions. greenspan had a lazy fair -- was a fair -- lasse fair attitude about institutions looking after themselves. that it would be i am and institutes self-interest not to drive itself off of a bitch, but it did not work. -- off of aÑi ditch, çóbut it dd not work. caller: i remember parties in the 1990's where people were bragging about the textiles that they were buying. same with real estate. the problem with real estate is people borrowing. once those loans go under, of the problem becomes worse. looking at the

greenspan and ben bernanke, was let the market settle everything. and yet, it didn't work out as they planned. and when you look at the meltdown that we witnessed last year, and subsequent government response to that, it puts us in a place that i would argue very similar to where benjamin roth was 80 years ago, 70 plus years ago. we had a massive, unprecedented multibillion dependent as you calculated, bowled like a billion dollar bailout of the banking sector. was that the right thing to do? was that the wrong thing to do? would have unintended consequences? we had government takeover of major corporations, including in the automotive industry. again, unprecedented in american history. we were supposed to have a distinction between a public sector and the private sector. that seems to have evaporated rather quickly. we have a stainless program, the result of which we can talk about this later, but the result of which is to make people invisible and some people actually deleterious. a cash and clunkers program encouraging people to buy today so i th

greenspan fundamentalism. at the end of the day, all that you could fall back on in this government. and the fiscal package which was absolutely essential. and if that narrative comes out that this is what the society needs, that can pay bogle -- paved the way for social concessions. entitlements do need to come under control but equally, some taxes also need to be part of the discourse. i don't see that to the same extent as i see the emphasis on entitlements. >> you don't see public support for higher taxes? why would you? >> as i was telling you, the medicare panel was talking about lots of elderly people in this country don't think that medicare is a government program. that is a problem here. it needs to be addressed. >> please, go ahead. >> 160 million americans get their health insurance not for medicare and medicaid -- and i want tighter tax issue, because i agree totally with the commissioner. we have had a tax discussion and it got blown out of the water. the quickest way as i see it to do something

alan greenspan was get a supporter of a little group of people in the 1960's. he wrote a fantastic article about how bad the debt was and how bad the central bank was and we confiscate wealth by printing money. it is a wonderful article. we had one session and one morning before orlin to the banking committee and it was to go in and say -- before we go into the banking committee. he was getting ready to testify. i dug up an old copy of the objective newsletter with the original article appeared on the gold standard. a doug that out and took it with a. when i was meeting him, i said, and d recognize suspects i had it and flipped it open to that particular article. he said, yes, i remember that article. i said, would you, autograph this article? he took his pen out and signed it. i said, do you want to add a disclaimer? he said that he read it recently. host: ron paul in september this year. the best nonfiction book 2009 is the topic. nancy, good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas. thank you for c-span. i will put "the soldiers education" as my book.

a story in there about the time i think most of you here in this audience with know the story that alan greenspan of course was a supporter of and a friend of an land and he was in their little group of people. but in the 1960's he wrote this fantastic article about how bad cop was and how bad the simple bank was then that we confiscated wealth by printing money. i mean it's a wonderful article. and so we had a session one morning before going to the banking committee. and it was to go when and personally say hello to the federal reserve word chairman because he was getting ready to testify and get a picture with him. so i thought i would do that it had been scheduled so i dug up an old copy of the newsletter where the original article appeared on the gold and dirt. so i dug that out and took it with me and then i was meeting and i pulled it out and said do you recognize this news? so i handed it inflicted open to that particular article and i said do you remember this article? i said yeah, i remember it. i said would you mind signing this? so he took his pen out and find it and i said

he gets partial blame for the fact that the crisis arose, although more went to alan greenspan. but he gets a lot of credit for the way he coped with it. >> larry: ron, what do you make of the selection? >> i think it's pretty neat. he is the most important guy in the world. and anybody who can create trillion of dollars behind the scenes and spend it with no oversight, i mean, that's pretty important. and he is a counterfeiter. he's the chief counterfeiter of all history. and i would say that's very good. and i like it because it draws attention to the fed. because the source of so many of our problems come to the fed. the business cycle comes from the fed. this to me is a real delight. i don't have to agree for the reasons that they, you know, gave him man of the year. >> larry: a negative man of the year. >> yes, it's very important we understand why he is so important and powerful. >> larry: tanya, were you surprised at the selection? >> i was a little surprised, but i have to say, with all due respect to senator paul, there is -- i think that this was -- here's a man who ha

the guests include alan greenspan. this is 10:00 eastern here on c- span. at 2:00 eastern, they examine afghanistan contracts, and they hear from representatives of the department of defense and state, and the u.s. agency for international development. >> "book tv" this weekend. tim carney says obama is a champion of big business. then greg mortensen on olall girl's schools. get the weekend schedule at book tv.org. >> now, a hearing on information security at the transportation security administration, including the airport screening operations. this is a little over one hour. >> the subcommittee will come to order. let me acknowledge mr. thompson of mississippi. and the ranking member. he is from pennsylvania. let me welcome those of you who are here. let me take a moment of personal privilege. knowledge the family of mr. edward kelley, who, in this business, is considered family. many of us gathered after 9/11 in respective positions. we gathered as members of the committee on homeland security. many of us were there from the beginning. he comfortably ret

i opposed you because i knew you would continue the legacy of alan greenspan and i was right. but i did not know how right i would be and could not imagine how wrong you would be in the following four years. the greenspan legacy on monetary policy was breaking from the taylor rule to provide easy money and thus inflation bubbles. not only did you continue that policy when you took control of the fed but supported every greenspan rate decision when you were on the fed earlier this decade. sometime you even wanted to go farther to provide easier money than chairman greenspan. a recent -- as recently as a letter you sent me two weeks ago you still refused to admit fed action played any role in inflating the housing bubble despite the overwhelming evidence and the consensus of economists to the contrary. and in your effort to keep filling the punch bowl, you cranked up the printing presses to buy mortgage securities, treasury securities, commercial paper and other assets from wall street. those purchases, by the way, led to some nice profits for the wall street banks and dealers w

i opposed him because i knew he would continue the legacy of alan greenspan and i was right. but, i did not know how right i would be and could not imagine how wrong he would be in the following four years. from monetary policy to regulation, consumer protection, transparency, and independence, chairman bernanke's time has fed chair has been a failure. we must put an end to his and the federal reserve's failures and there is no better time than now. as i said two weeks ago, the greenspan legacy on monetary policy was breaking from the tailor rule to provide easy money and, thus, inflate bubbles. not only did chairman bernanke continue that policy when he took control of the fed, but he supported every greenspan rate decision when he was a fed governor before he became chairman. sometime, if you read the minutes of the fed, he wanted to go even further and provide easier money than chairman greenspan. yet, at recent -- as recently as last month chairman@@@@@ @ @ @ this continued after he was promoted. the most glaring example is that it took him two years to finally regulate t

i opposed you because i knew you would continue the legacy of alan greenspan and i was right. but i did not know how right i would be and could not imagine how wrong you would be in the following four years. the greenspan legacy on monetary policy was breaking from the taylor rule to provide easy money and thus inflation bubbles. not only did you continue that policy when you took control of the fed but supported every greenspan rate decision when you were on the fed earlier this decade. sometime you even wanted to go farther to provide easier money than chairman greenspan. a recent -- as recently as a letter you sent me two weeks ago you still refused to admit fed action played any role in inflating the housing bubble despite the overwhelming evidence and the consensus of economists to the contrary. and in your effort to keep filling the punch bowl, you cranked up the printing presses to buy mortgage securities, treasury securities, commercial paper and other assets from wall street. those purchases, by the way, led to some nice profits for the wall street banks and dealers w

and you don't have to be alan greenspan to know if you keep doing that over a long period of time you're going to run an unsustainable debt. the rebolon has taken specific -- rebellion has taken specific form in this congress and it is to push, as senator voinovich and i have done in the so-called safe act and senator conrad and senator gregg has done in their bipartisan task force for responsible fiscal action, which is really the leading vehicle of this rebellion today with more than 30 senate co-sponsors to create a process, a commission that will bring key decisionmakers from congress, perhaps the administration, perhaps from outside together to make the tough decisions in the national interest and then to bring it back to congress on a kind of up or down vote. and the reason for this i think we've all concluded ourselves that we're not capable for dealing with this problem as quickly as we have to deal with it. it's the old, i'm dating myself, but the old cartoon, we've met the enemy and it is us. and so we have decided it's a kind of congressional fiscal 12-step program. we've got

., with testimony from former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan and former u.s. comptroller david walker. live at 10:00 a.m. eastern right after "washington journal" on c- span. in the afternoon, the state department and pentagon officials testify on contacting in afghanistan. recent charges will the private security companies are paying off the deep and cheeks to make sure that u.s. convoys get through -- pay half taliban chiefs to make sure that u.s. can always get through -- u.s. convoys get through. >> the heart of the matter is the half-a-trillion-dollar cut in medicare, the $400 billion tax increases, and the fact that insurance premiums are going to go up dramatically for most americans. >> follow every minute of the debate on the senate floor, with late nights and possibly more weekend sessions, life on our companion network, c-span2, the only network to cover the sessions gavel-to-gavel with no commentary. and get updates from the congressional quarterly-roll call group. >> "washington journal" it continues. host: this is john bresnahan of "politico." we

greenspan, the chairman of the federal reserve board, wasn't even able to sleep. he was worried we were going to pay down the debt too quickly. i assured him that he ought to go to sleep peacefully because that is not a problem, and president bush came to town and said you know what? we're going to do very big tax cuts because it's estimated we're going to have very big surpluses, and i was one of those on the floor of the senate that said you know what? maybe we ought not do that. let's be a little conservative. these surpluses don't exist for the next ten years yet. they existed that year for the first time in a long, long time in the year 2000, a budget surplus. president bush said no, no, we're going to begin very large tax cuts right now in anticipation of these large surpluses in the future. some of us said well, let's be careful. no, we're going to do them. and the wealthiest americans got very large tax cuts, especially. and then almost immediately, this country went into a recession, and six months after that, this country was hit with 9/11, an unbelievab

and at the time, the chairman of the fed, alan greenspan, testified to congress that we had a new problem and the new problem was that because of the projected surpluses, we were in a number of years going to have too much money, that we were going to pay off the debt and the federal government would be forced to buy private equities and that this would not have a maximizing effect on -- on our economy. that's what he said after bush became president. that was what he said. he said we had -- we were going to have too much money. that's what the chairman of the fed said. so we handed the ball off to president bush and we handed the ball off to these republicans and the problem was we were going to have too much money. well, that's not a problem anymore, is it? and now you hear them screaming about the deficit. well, think about the deficit they left us. think about the economic circumstances that left us in. we're talking about getting rid of this excise tax but we're talking about paying for it. the c.b.o. has scored this bill as cutting the debt in the next ten years by $179 billion and

i opposed him because i knew he would continue the legacy of alan greenspan and i was right. but, i did not know how right i would be and could not imagine how wrong he would be in the following four years. from monetary policy to regulation, consumer protection, transparency, and independence, chairman bernanke's time has fed chair has been a failure. we must put an end to his and the federal reserve's failures and there is no better time than now. as i said two weeks ago, the greenspan legacy on monetary policy was breaking from the tailor rule to provide easy money and, thus, inflate bubbles. not only did chairman bernanke continue that policy when he took control of the fed, but he supported every greenspan rate decision when he was a fed governor before he became chairman. sometime, if you read the minutes of the fed, he wanted to go even further and provide easier money than chairman greenspan. yet, at recent -- as recently as last month chairman bernanke continued to deny that fed action played any role in inflating the housing bubble. as recently as one month ago. on

i opposed him because i knew he would continue the legacy of alan greenspan and i was right. but i did not know how right i would be and could not imagine how wrong he would be in the following four years. from monetary policy to regulation, consumer protection, transparency and independence, chairman bernanke's time as fed chair has been a failure. we must put an end to his and the federal reserve's failures and there is no better time than now. as i said two weeks ago, the greenspan legacy on monetary policy was breaking from the taylor rule to provide easy money and thus inflate bubbles. not only did chairman bernanke continue that policy, when he took control of the fed, but he supported evergreen span rate decision when he was a fed governor before he became chairman. sometime if you read the minutes of the fed, he wanted to go even further and provide easier money than chairman greenspan. yet as recently as last month, chairman bernanke continued to deny that fed action played any role in inflating the housing bubble. as recently as one month ago. on consumer protection