Alan Greenspan, How's by You ...?

have an acquaintance, normally a very calm man, who is known to scream at his television these days. I’m told he saves his special imprecations for recently retired Fed Chief, Alan Greenspan.
I am only able to infer that my once calm friend’s retirement accounts are not doing quite so well. He is a man who has lived for his retirement years, forsaking all else to fund them. Watching the money shrink, I am sure, is a devastating experience.
But why yell at Greenspan? Sputtering, my friend once answered me, “it was his policies that led us into this mess. He did it! It’s all his fault!”
No. He did not. It is not. Perhaps he deserves a bit of censure for a touch of cowardice. But, after all, Mr. Greenspan was a public servant. In a Democracy, like ours, he ultimately represents the voters and he must bend his policies to their will. Mr. Greenspan did just that – he gave my brother-in-law what he wanted, what he insisted upon having.
Do we remember that in 1996 Mr. Greenspan tried to warn us? He spoke up about an “irrational exuberance” in the markets. That’s about as strong language as a bureaucrat better dare use. (I’ve been a bureaucrat. Plain speaking is dangerous. The penalties can be Draconian.) Mr. Greenspan was very clear – and he was clearly heard.
The Japanese market dropped sharply a day later. What happened in America?
When you say something – especially if it is deemed unpleasant to the hearer – there are a variety of responses you may encounter. If they disagree with you, you can argue back, marshal more facts, enlist allies, whatever. Mere disagreement doesn’t have to shut you up.
If they don’t hear or understand you, you can say it louder, try for more clarity – once again the discussion can continue.
But if they laugh at you, snigger, sneer, repeat you with derision in their voices, you had better stop immediately. Laughter is lethal to a public servant of any kind. At best he merely loses all effectiveness once he has been jeered at. At worst he’s out of his job.
When he tried to warn Americans that the markets were becoming too hot to be safe or even real, Mr. Greenspan got laughed at. Raucously.
Alan Greenspan is anything but stupid. He never attempted to warn us again. If we insisted upon being irrationally exuberant, he bent his policies to concur with our wishes. (We are a democracy, after all.) He was also a follower of Ayn Rand, and may well have felt that people were entitled to act as they pleased – even if they injured themselves. Especially after being warned.
Greenspan warned to more, and the American markets continued upward, ever upward, in their irrationally exuberant course. Until, perfectly rationally, they fell.
My friend may scream at his TV all he wishes. He may throw epithets at Alan Greenspan. That’s his democratic right, just as it was his right not to listen to Mr. Greenspan when he actually said a very clear thing (unusual in the extreme for Greenspan).
He just has to accept some of the blame himself.