[batista]

>I think you're conflating "people who work on Wall Street" with economists. Most of the "dirtiest" of the loan originators were people with no financial education whatsoever; salesmen, and nothing more.

And I think you're conflating economists with people that didn't influence policy at the top level to enable those "salesmen" to do what they did, people that didn't hum along while the salesmen were doing it, people that didn't praise this thing happening, and people that didn't ensure the public that everything was perfectly OK before the crash.

Because economists, and top level ones at that, with Ivy League PhDs and all, did all of the above.

Case in point:

"""The former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, has conceded that the global financial crisis has exposed a "mistake" in the free market ideology which guided his 18-year stewardship of US monetary policy. A long-time cheerleader for deregulation, Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee yesterday that he had been "partially wrong" in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and that the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief. "I have found a flaw," said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy."""

But all other top dog economists policy influences were doing the same things, and praising the same "throw caution to the wind" attitude towards the "free market" and unsupervised banking...

[tatsuke95]

>"And I think you're conflating economists with people that didn't influence policy at the top level to enable those "salesmen" to do what they did"

Pray tell, what did they do? What options does the Fed have that can run opposite popular politics that wouldn't instantly cause them to lose independence?

>"people that didn't ensure the public that everything was perfectly OK before the crash"

This is simply not true. People, including academics, were writing about the housing market pressures as early as 2004. The "economists" can't force themselves onto MSNBC or CNN to tell people to stop buying houses, especially when that runs counter to what politicians want: a hot economy.

>"The former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, has conceded that the global financial crisis has exposed a "mistake" in the free market ideology which guided his 18-year stewardship of US monetary policy."

An old Randian, trying to ensure his legacy isn't completely tarnished. Hindsight is pretty easy.