In Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve, William A. Fleckenstein takes tough shots at the former Fed chairman. The hedge fund manager and writer of the online column Contrarian Chronicles studied transcripts of Fed meetings and Greenspan's congressional testimony, and tracked the market's moves. That is the basis for the critique he co-authored with Frederick Sheehan, published by a unit of McGraw-Hill (MHP), BusinessWeek's corporate parent. Contributing editor Christopher Farrell asked Fleckenstein how investors will fare during Ben Bernanke's regime.Chapter headings like "How Wrong Can One Man Be?" make your opinion of Greenspan clear. What about Bernanke?
Bernanke is just a pure academic. He was almost predestined to be in over his head. When I looked at what he was saying on the Federal Open Market Committee, before he became chairman, it was clear he didn't understand what was going on. But then he was handed the big real estate bubble as chairman. He was doomed.
Many people believed Greenspan could be relied on to cut rates and bail out the financial markets when they ran into trouble. Is that the case with Bernanke?
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