Apr 102010
Book Excerpt: Roger Lowenstein’s “The End of Wall Street” – BusinessWeek
Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.” — Alan Greenspan, testimony before the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, Oct. 23, 2008
The crash of 2008 put to rest the intellectual model that inspired, and to a large degree facilitated, the bubble. It spelled the end of the immodest faith in Wall Street’s ability to forecast. No better testimony exists than the extraordinary recanting of former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, the public official most associated with the thesis that markets are ever to be trusted.
