Un-be-frickin'-lievable (or: the Post of Rhetorical Questioning)

Welcome to this highly evolved and erudite term - you saw it here first! - which I was forced to create because I've exhausted all other descriptors -- outrage (twice, even), shock, disbelief, audacity, indignation and flabbergasted(ness) .... even getting to the point of becoming "Blogless".

So, while Blogger really has saved on the therapy bills, we know that therapy only elucidates but does not transform. Hence the un-be-frickin'-lievability pounds on. In this case, the culprit: Credit Default Swaps were unregulated....???????? I mean, I could see how these new securities constituted uncharted territory (=they were "new") and, as such, the exposure they created for their holders wasn't fully realized* until it all unwound.

But....COMPLETELY unregulated????????

Free-market purists are so pure they fail to grasp human nature, which is not, of course, purely rational.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said. Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

Our former flavor-of-the-Administration went on to subtly defend himself....:

“I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that [this economic worldview] was working exceptionally well.”

But doesn't every Series 7 person know that 'past performance is not an indication of future results'? Reference my grasping to define character as being willing to course- correct....sometimes of course than can appear as waffling ;-)

I know hindsight is always 20/20 and it's easier to criticize retroactively than to formulate policy proactively. However, I'm being hard because, in this case being "wrong" has led to trillions....as in, "tr"....of damage worldwide.

Somehow that adage of "asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission" just doesn't seem to cut it here.

*see #2, "Minute 14:40" reference in this post