You've got to love John Stossel, the once liberal ABC news crusader against big business turned libertarian and who now has a show on Fox Business Network. On Reason magazine's blog yesterday (Reason is a libertarian journal/website), Stossel elegantly --- and quite convincingly --- tells Alan Greenspan that he should keep his mouth shut.
Stossel is distressed that Greenspan has abandonded his free-market principles and has lately become something of a big-guvie, raise-taxes and regulate-more kind'a guy. Here is how Stossel's post on Reason.com begins:
"I'm getting tired of Alan Greenspan. First, the former Federal Reserve chairman blamed an allegedly unregulated free market for the housing and financial debacle. Now he favors repealing the Bush-era tax cuts.
"This has a certain sad irony. Recall that Greenspan once was an associate of Ayn Rand, the philosophical novelist who provided a moral defense of the free market, or as she put it, the separation of state and economy. Greenspan even contributed three essays to Rand's book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal—one for the gold standard, one against antitrust laws, and one against government consumer protection.
"It was slightly bizarre when Greenspan accepted President Reagan's appointment to run the Fed—maybe he thought that as long as the Fed exists, better someone like him run it rather than one who really believes government should centrally plan money and banking. . . ."