Autonomy vs. Control (Reloaded)

Como hemos comentado en clase, una de las consecuencias de la actual crisis del sistema finaciero mundial ha sido aguijonear el debate entre autonomía y control. ¿Debe el Estado tener una mayor intervención en los mercados? El día de ayer, Alan Greespan, presidente de la Reserva Federal estadounidense durante casi 18 años hasta el 2006, considerado hasta hace algunos meses el maestro infalible del acertijo financiero, y uno de los responsables clave del proceso de desregulación que sufrió la economía estadounidense a partir de la era Regan, aceptó ante la Congreso el error de su ideología: los mercados no se autorregulan. Aquí un fragmento de la nota del The New York Times al respecto:

WASHINGTON — For years, a Congressional hearing with Alan Greenspan was a marquee event. Lawmakers doted on him as an economic sage. Markets jumped up or down depending on what he said. Politicians in both parties wanted the maestro on their side.

But on Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Now 82, Mr. Greenspan came in for one of the harshest grillings of his life, as Democratic lawmakers asked him time and again whether he had been wrong, why he had been wrong and whether he was sorry.Critics, including many economists, now blame the former Fed chairman for the financial crisis that is tipping the economy into a potentially deep recession. Mr. Greenspan’s critics say that he encouraged the bubble in housing prices by keeping interest rates too low for too long and that he failed to rein in the explosive growth of risky and often fraudulent mortgage lending.

“You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”

Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.” On a day that brought more bad news about rising home foreclosures and slumping employment, Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken.

*Si les interesa el tema, valdría leer la autobiografía de Greenspan: La era de turbulencias. Es un texto interesante, donde pueden encontrar, por ejemplo, la historia de cómo se cocinaron los famosos créditos hipotecarios subprime (detonadores, en buena medida, de la crisis financiera).