The Economic Crisis Taints Us All: Galbraith

The economic bust has taken a hammer to the profession of economics, Reagan's monetary policy, and the careers of President Bush, Alan Greenspan, and Henry Paulson, James Galbraith tells the New York Times. In an interview with Deborah Solomon, the economist chides his colleagues for failing to call the meltdown, which he says is “an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession."

Reagan’s policy of deregulation “has been shown to be fundamentally useless,” Galbraith says, adding that Bush’s cronyism “enabled all the shady operators and card sharks in the system to come to dominate how we finance.” But his harshest words are for the Fed chief, whose mea culpa came "a day late and a dollar short. I think Greenspan bears a high, high degree of responsibility for what has happened."