>Parse this for me, Doug: so Greenspan is concluding that reining in
>American consumers would be a good thing, in macroeconomic terms?
>Won't that make Wal-mart shareholders (among others) a little
>twitchy?
I'm not sure of how to read it. My suspicion is that AG wants to burst the housing bubble, which would bring consumption down, the savings rate up, and the US international accounts closer to balance. At first I thought his claim that the adjustment would be painless because of the "flexibility" of the US economy was delusional, but on second thought, I suspected this was his way of saying we can take it, we're tough. Fasten your seatbelt.
Doug