Free Panderer to Power: The Untold Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession by Frederick Sheehan Page B

Got Here: The 70’s; The Decade That Brought You Modern Life (for Better or Worse) (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 25.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., p. 21.
14 National Association of Homebuilders; www.nahb.org; Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Table C-25.
15 Robert A.M.Stern, Thomas Mellins, and David Fishman, New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism between the Second World War and the Bicentennial (New York: Monacelli: Press, 1995), p. 32.
    Life in New York is often an exaggeration and distortion of life across America. But the texts and subtexts wearing down the nation’s largest city were to define the retrenchment that evolved across America through the new millennium: production in decline; fancy finance to the forefront; the ascendancy of showbiz; the perpetual craving for entertainment and shopping; sloppy workmanship; quantity over quality; less tangible and more insecure jobs in increasingly cramped, colorless, and utilitarian offices; the rush to the suburbs for a more comfortable and affordable life, then to the exurbs when the suburbs compromised these ambitions; and the requisite obsession to make money fast enough to stay on the treadmill. By the mid1970s, New York resembled a third-world capital, like Johannesburg or Rio, with some rich and more poor and with tension arising from transit strikes, garbage strikes, and newspaper strikes.
    Mr. Greenspan Goes to Washington
    It was Alan Greenspan’s turn at bat. On August 8, 1974, he appeared before the Senate Banking Committee. (This happened to be the same day Richard Nixon announced his resignation from office.) Greenspan’s Council of Economic Advisers grilling was unremarkable other than over 40 minutes of questioning by Senator William Proxmire, during which the senator “let rip.” 18 Proxmire voted against Greenspan’s nomination.
    By the time Greenspan moved to Washington, “stagflation” (inflation and recession at the same time) was gripping the country. To read the press of the day, Greenspan was magnificent. Whatever the case, his true brilliance was managing his image. He received lengthy profiles in BusinessWeek and the New York Times Magazine . By early 1975, a “top White House official” told BusinessWeek , “Greenspan has a unique personal relationship with the President. Alan was the only top aide to spend the entire time [at Gerald Ford’s retreat] in Palm Springs during the Easter vacation.” 19 The official went on to say that “[on] economic policy, Alan is a heavyweight.” 20 This was high praise—especially since he didn’t hold a position with tangible responsibility. According to the BusinessWeek profile: “Greenspan spends much of his time screening economic information to determine what gets to the President, and the quality of the material is considered ‘first rate’ by White House insiders.” 21
    16 Ibid., p. 62.
17 Ibid., p. 65.
18 Martin, Greenspan , pp. 91–93.
    The insiders’ judgment may have been sincere, but the CEA director’s performance is difficult to evaluate. For instance, Greenspan’s aptitude achieved a pinnacle in a November 1974 New Yorker analysis, in which the magazine claimed that “economists of all persuasions (with the exception of Alan Greenspan, an Ayn Rand disciple, who heads the President’s Council of Economic Advisers) admit to being baffled by today’s problems, the answers to which are not to be found in textbooks or in historical precedents.” 22 The logic seems to run that since Greenspan was trained by Rand, he understood all. What “all” might comprise is not divulged by the New Yorker and apparently not by Greenspan, since the befuddled remained so.
    BusinessWeek readers learned that “Greenspan’s special skill as an economist is his ability to quickly recognize the changes occurring in the economy, to understand their significance, and to make the necessary adjustment. Such skills, which Greenspan honed to a fine edge as private consultant to the top executives of about 100