Greenspan’s Honesty Is Best Policy

“Upstaging ‘Maestro’ Greenspan” (Feb. 14) is incorrectly labeled as a “news analysis.” In fact, it reads more like a hatchet attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan has provided the United States with a critical analysis of the Bush administration’s proposed tax quagmire and its impact on our future economy. That’s his job, and he has a decade of economic success behind him to support his analysis.

The fact that the Bush administration is angry at him -- and plans to besmirch his expertise and record in response to his honest appraisal of the negative effect that the administration’s tax policy will have on our economy for many years -- is the real story.

Instead, Peter Gosselin essentially works as the administration’s patsy, quoting people who describe Greenspan as “in the twilight of his career” and “at the end of his policy rope,” and dismissing the honors bestowed on him for his strong and able leadership over the last decade.

Some would call Greenspan’s words those of a seasoned and knowledgeable economic veteran who has the integrity to speak the truth, even though his president is known to be mean-spirited and retributive toward those who don’t agree with him.

Carol J. Smith

Cerritos

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The photo of Greenspan is quite revealing. Here is one tired-looking fellow without a clue. The wizards at the Federal Reserve are no more able to provide economic security and wealth than is the neighborhood counterfeiter. And now President Bush is calling for even more Fed paper money. It will let us have another little war before anyone understands how they are paying for it.

We are told there has been no inflation. Well, folks, there was no price inflation in the 1920s either, except when you included stocks. If we look just at the Fed’s highlight reel, we see the Great Depression, the inflation of the post-Vietnam era and, most recently, the collapse of the “new economy,” all precipitated by the Federal Reserve’s magic money machine.

Well, all of you John Maynard Keynes worshipers should remember what that famous economist once said about our being ruled by dead economists. Too bad we worship the wrong ones.

Eric Taylor

Sunland

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A voice for Greenspan: He rightly found fault with Bush’s far-out, supply-side answer to our economic woes. Bush’s program will eventually bankrupt the country and along the way kill both Social Security and Medicare. The right wing will then build statues to this man.

Carl Melin

Buena Park