Former Fed chief Greenspan: 'I was wrong 30% of the time'

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan is sworn in during a hearing before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.






By David J. Lynch, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — He's human after all.

From the councils of government to the paneled boardrooms of Wall Street, the idea of Alan Greenspan erring once would have seemed rank heresy. Those days, however, are long gone. Pressed Wednesday to defend his stewardship of the U.S. economy in the years before a massive housing bubble collapsed, the former Fed chairman told a commission investigating the origins of the financial crisis: "In the business I was in, I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong 30% of the time."

The former Federal Reserve chairman probably didn't mean it this way, but that score — depending upon your point of view — is worth either a C- or a seat alongside an economic thinker who is almost no one's idea of a sage. Read more on this article....