Greenspan says Regulate the Market!

What?

Greenspan says the market has a flaw in how it defines way in which the world works. Specifically, the market does not act to protect shareholders.

As if we needed Greenspan to tell us that! The horse is out of the barn, laying dead in the water hole, and closing the barn door ain't goin' to help.

"Greenspan, 82, acknowledged under questioning that he had made a "mistake" in believing that banks, operating in their own self-interest, would do what was necessary to protect their shareholders and institutions. Greenspan called that "a flaw in the model ... that defines how the world works."

He acknowledged that he had also been wrong in rejecting fears that the five-year housing boom was turning into an unsustainable speculative bubble that could harm the economy when it burst. Greenspan maintained during that period that home prices were unlikely to post a significant decline nationally because housing was a local market.

He said Thursday that he held to that belief because until the current housing slump there had never been such a significant decline in prices nationwide. He said the current financial crisis had 'turned out to be much broader than anything that I could have imagined.'"

So Greenspan played the fiddle while Rome burned thinking the Market would put out all the fires.