Charles Brown
>>> "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu at mindspring.com> 02/23/99 02:35PM >>>
Don't forget this is Humphrey-Hawkins testimony which is supposed to be the Fed
Chairman's justification to Congress how he has met or intends to meet policy
aims of Humphrey-Hawkins.
So between the lines, its not unusual for Greenspan to imply that those aims
are economically inconsistent and simply bad policy in general, using the
latest data as his ammunition.
This is why he sounds inconsistent, because he uses the data selectively to
justify hios ideology. The key phrase is alway: "the balance of risk."
In answer to Committee (Democrat) Vice Chairman's question on persistent low
skill unemployment, for example, Greenspan gives the pat answer of job
training. So he blames the victims rather than the economic system.
Henry
Doug Henwood wrote:
> jf noonan wrote:
>
> >And last time around, it was just the neato way the Market is supposed
> >to work. Will ever make up his mind?
>
> Greenspan's discourse is not unlike Freud's dreamwork: contradictions are
> presented in sequence rather than worked out simultaneously. So, Greenspan
> will contradict himself from month to month, or even paragraph to
> paragraph. All along, he's been worried about the contradictions between
> global deflation/crisis and domestic "overheating." I think what's happened
> is that the international financial scene has settled down enough that he
> can start worrying about the excessively low unemployment rate and the
> excessively high stock market again. This week.
>
> Doug