Watch Jon Stewart Defenestrate Alan Greenspan

Start at 14:02 for the goodies.

Last night, Jon Stewart interviewed Alan Greenspan, who is promoting his new mean culpa-cum-memoir book, The Man And The Territory.

One central subject: the role of irresponsible banking practices in the financial meltdown of 2008-2009.

The conversation was astounding. On the subject of why the big banks couldn’t discipline themselves in trading and securitization — because their employees were incentivized to do anything to maximize short-term revenue with no thought as to long-term consequences — here’s the pull quote:

Stewart: “Isn’t it because they don’t pay the penalty? … The system was incentivized for these crazy short-term bursts of rewards.”

Greenspan: “We really can’t forecast all that well and yet we pretend that we can but we really can’t. Markets do very weird things because it reacts to how people behave and sometimes people are a little screwy.”

Stewart: “You just learned this?”

By: rhb

Rob is a NYC-based Internet entrepreneur. He's also a businessman and job creator (wait: doesn't demand create jobs?) who understands the sense, and the eventual predominance, of the progressive agenda.