Greenspan Concedes Error

From the New York Times.

Facing a firing line of questions from Washington lawmakers, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman once considered the infallible maestro of the financial system, admitted on Thursday that he "made a mistake" in trusting that free markets could regulate themselves without government oversight.

What will all the free marketeers have to say about this?  Alan Greenspan, the most ardent defender of the "invisible hand" has been forced to admit that his ideology and view of the world was, in fact, incorrect. 

I have to give Greenspan his props though, when pointedly questioned he didn't equivocate or give some sort of half-assed, mealy mouthed answer.  He said straight up, things weren't working the way he thought they would.  Greenspan also pointed out, quite reasonably, that he had been working off of forty years of data that said things were working just fine.

When things were going well for the last fifteen or so years, I thought Greenspan was a pretty sharp guy and this admission of error does nothing to change that perception.  I would liken this situation to the one I wrote about yesterday, you can't just throw the baby out with the bath water because of one mistake.  I just hope that both Powell and Greenspan find a way to redeem themselves.