"In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.
However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says."
He calls himself a libertarian republican, and if you look at his writings and other actions from before he was involved with the fed, he was. But the very idea of a central bank goes totally against what his beliefs were before. He wrote an article called “Gold and Economic Freedom” which he argued for the use of gold as money and against a central bank. Given the powers that be in the Fed, he may not have had a choice in the matter when he did become the chairman, so he may still be a libertarian republican.
This week will be an interesting time to watch the fed. The Fed has a choice of kicking off a stagflation and potentially hyperinflation (by lowering the rate), or kicking off deflation (which is what caused the Great Depression). They are kinda stuck on this one, because any action will send a bad message. Deflation is actually good, but the price controls and other interventions done by the politicians is what causes all the problems. If rates are not lowered, you will see a crash on Wall Street, aka a price correction. Lowering rates will make the market happy for now, but will create a new bubble, this time, I expect it to be a food bubble (aka, a famine, but since it’s a fed created problem, we’ll call them bubbles).
There will also be a few banks issuing financial reports this week. If those are bad, we may see a good old fashion run on the banks, like what is happening now to a bank in the UK. Not even something like the FDIC can save this when it’s market wide.
There has been some irrational exuberance in the sub-prime and other risky loans just like there was irrational exuberance during the internet stock bubble. All the promotions to get people to refinance with adjustable rate loans without properly factoring in the risks involved has not helped either. The irrational exuberance in the loan markets is having global repercussions now.
don’ t attribute to clever scheming what could be attributed to sheer stupidity.
though some people that had oil in their mind were pushing for that I doubt this is the reason.
for sure those who decided on that did not really believe in the official reasons … but I doubt they had clever consistent plans.
a thesis subject for future history students: what could stop the overthrow of a dictatorship turning into a chaos? (happily there are some successful examples… sadly many politicians did not read their history books).
Looking at economics, the reason for the war is the petro-dollar. Forcing dollars on the oil producing countries has propped up the dollar, and now with the Euro providing competition to the dollar, the dollar will go downhill, as we’ve already seen is happening.
My only comment about this is that I think it’s completely pathetic that in today’s political atmosphere, one must be explicitly identified as a Republican to criticize Bush and be taken seriously.
I’m sure a lot of people would have had a similar comment eight years ago:
My only comment about this is that I think it’s completely pathetic that in today’s political atmosphere, one must be explicitly identified as a Democrat to criticize Clinton and be taken seriously.
MM states a truism, but it works both ways. I could have said:
My only comment about this is that I think it’s completely pathetic that in today’s political atmosphere, one must be explicitly identified as a <insert politician’s party> to criticize <insert politician’s name> and be taken seriously.
The Fed choose to inflate, as expected. As usual, the Fed is bailing out the people who exhibited the irrational exuberance which was caused by the Fed’s low rates from before. Now for some more irrational exuberance, but in another sector.
Bush and Co. promised insiders that the Iraq war was a go. Told them what companies would get multi year billion dollar no bid contracts. Helped the well connected set up new contracting companies. My theory rests entirely on the idea that Bush and Co. knew that Sadam would not pass inspections and an invasion would be needed. Oh, he did pass inspections ?, well that just proves my point. Only the inner circle at Bush and Co. knew that secret. That shares in Haliburton and other stocks would quadruple in value, and yield huge dividends.
Others could take a guess, but then when Sadam passes inspections and there is no war, the stocks would drop. But not if you had the clear crystal ball. If Bush had told you a year before it was common knowledge. And so the Iraq war is in fact an enormous success. Bush doesn’t look so depressed does he ? Don’t expect to see Rumsfeld or Rove in tears anytime soon either. It is a success on par with the repeal of the death tax, tax cuts for the wealthy, and denying health care to millions. I don’t think it’s really about oil. Actually, the oil industry doesn’t like cheap Arab oil. They make much more when energy prices are high. If you owned an oil field in Texas, what could you possibly see wrong with a war that raises prices ? Let’s bomb Iran ! They would love 100$ a barrel oil. The coal companies love high oil to.
In sum, the Iraq war is best understood as an operation to maximize the profit that can be realized with insider information. That is the best way to understand Bush and Co. They are a business. And business is good. Viewed from that angle, their behavior seems very rational. Even inspired.
I was mostly just commenting on this specific situation…but you are completely right. Any political criticism from the “other side” is just ___ wing lunacy.
Our system of government is really a spectator democracy (like showbusiness is a spectator entertainment), and a big distraction from the winning players collecting ALL of the tokens. Of course they are. Capitalism is an everyone-for-themselves economic system, and a representative democratic political system under a capitalist economic system can necessarily be influenced by those with the most money.
Which, if Karl Marx was right, is a distraction from what really happens at the end of the game, whether it’s monopoly or sim-city or dress-up or whatever political system. It ends in revolution, in decentralized power, in anarchism, in people working things out as a group.
To me, all of the party allegience in the media and from individuals is incredibly dumb. We need a whole different approach. Let’s revolve.
Your thread title is “Alan Greenspan admits Iraq War is for oil” as if he was somehow responsible for the war. Then your link in the opening post was entitled “Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil” which is entirely different in that someone else is held responsible. I don’t think you intended to introduce this discrepancy or any confusion it just reads that way.
I thought there was no question about the Persian Gulf wars being about oil. This would be true all the way back to the initial invasion of Kuwait by Iraq which was motivated by disagreements over oil rights. Any subsequent action has been based on that initial invasion. To believe otherwise I think would be naive.
He was partially responsible, Bush did not act alone in invading Iraq. I guess what I meant though is that he was one of the people who actually knew 100% that this was true, and he’s the first one to say so (even though we all really know it already, there’s just some people always ready to deny it…they can’t anymore).
Bush claimed originally that he was invading Iraq to disarm them of WMDs, and then to overthrow Saddam and rebuild Iraq’s government.
This was a lie all along.
Remember that Iraq was invaded during the administrations of two different Bushes (if that is the correct plural for the proper name Bush) so it becomes necessary sometimes to distinguish. Under Bush I the U.N. supported the invasion of Iraq with the intent of liberating Kuwait. Under Bush II the justification to invade (or re-invade) Iraq was noncompliance of treaty conditions and interference with UN weapons inspectors.
In Gulf War I the US cooperated with the UN in the invasion of Iraq. In Gulf War II the United States Congress passed a law listed as Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 in effect declaring war against Iraq in accordance with the Constitution. (This differs from police states or occupations such as Vietnam. Congress never declared war on North Vietnam.)
As for oil, I think everyone had to know that. This is what triggered the UN involvement. I don’t think that was any big secret.
then I am naïve: as far as I remember the reasons for kuwait’s invasion by iraq were a bit more complex.
for sure you can cite oil as a primary source of everything: the creation of kuwait as a “special” state distinct of its neighbors,…iran/iraq war … iraq’s nationalistic rethoric … all this could have been motivated by oil … only? not so sure.
yes yes you’re right: UN intervention was not so swift in similar circumstances devoid of oil. but if you notice the big differences in international reactions between the 2 iraq’s wars then oil is just part of the story.
I remember angry columnists accusing some European governements (France, Germany) of opposing this Iraq war because they had major economical interests in Iraq: though those interests were real
(and often a shame) this was certainly not the only reason for their opposition. … I hope I will live 30 more years to read the historians analysis of all this.