Greenspan backs bank nationalization

Krishna Guha and Edward Luce
Financial Times
February 18, 2009

The US government may have to nationalize some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has told the Financial Times.

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In an interview, Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism, said nationalization could be the least bad option left for policymakers.

”It may be necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”

Mr Greenspan’s comments capped a frenetic day in which policymakers across the political spectrum appeared to be moving towards accepting some form of bank nationalisation.

“We should be focusing on what works,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, told the FT. “We cannot keep pouring good money after bad.” He added, “If nationalisation is what works, then we should do it.”

Speaking to the FT ahead of a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday, Mr Greenspan said that “in some cases, the least bad solution is for the government to take temporary control” of troubled banks either through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or some other mechanism.

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This article was posted: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 12:02 pm

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