The loathesome Chairman of the Federal Reserve is at it again, suggesting that the mortgage finance companies on which so many middle-income families depend, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reduce their portfolios.
This is one more assault by Greenspan on the middle class, one more chorus in his sychophantic Swan Song.
Greenspan has become the Bush Administration’s financial poet laureate, ensuring that as he approaches retirement, he will retain the favor of the power elite who slaver over the obliteration of the lifestyles of folks like you and me.
Silent on the financial devastation of the Iraq War and the resulting unimaginable Federal deficit, the erosion of the dollar, the ever-worsening balance of trade, Greenspan’s assaults on Social Security and now Fannie and Freddie is, in my view, motivated by nothing more than the self-interest of a too-powerful civil servant who looks forward to reaping obscene rewards as he returns to a grateful private sector.
In an article in today’s New York Times, Senator Charles Schumer was one of the few who dared to criticize Greenspan’s latest attempt to “kill the beast”, i.e., to reduce the American middle class to pauper status.
Mr. Greenspan’s heavy regulatory bent on Wednesday was in marked contrast to his overall deregulatory approach in other areas, like hedge funds. That distinction was noted by several senators who questioned the need to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce their portfolios.
In several pointed lines of questioning, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, criticized Mr. Greenspan’s recommendation and called it both inconsistent with his other views on regulation and potentially damaging to the housing markets.
Without identifying anyone in particular, Mr. Schumer also suggested that some people who have advanced tougher regulation of the two housing finance companies were really pushing a broader agenda to eliminate the companies and their mission of providing affordable housing.
“I see an analogy to Social Security,” Mr. Schumer said. “Social Security has a problem and there are ideologues who want to undo it. Fannie and Freddie have problems, and there are ideologues who want to undo them. But there are ways to fix the problems short of what’s been proposed. When the sink is broken, you don’t want to tear down the house.”