I’ve not yet read Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia, but I’m adding it to my list of books to get if for no other reason than that Taibbi makes the financial crisis and the many ills of the Wall Street-Washington economy so entertaining. Of course, another reason is chapter two titled “The Biggest Asshole in the Universe”, what this review at OpenLettersMonthly dubs a “phenomenal disemboweling” of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Taibbi’s flourish about imagining the whole economy as a casino comes in Greenspan’s chapter. It’s appropriate, since Greenspan was given charge of vast swaths of economic policy during its conversion to a casino. Even in my senior year of high school’s introductory, half-semester course in economics, one of the few books we read was Maestro, Bob Woodward’s glowing account of the many supposedly perfect changes Alan Greenspan either made or directly advocated for, and got, during his tenure at the Fed. It never occurred to me as a 17-year-old, much less to America’s leading adult figures at the time, that entrusting one human with the entirety of American economic policy could cause some problems. Humans are flawed! And Taibbi would find Greenspan more flawed than most:

Greenspan’s rise is … a tale of a gerbilish mirror-gazer who flattered and bullshitted his way up the Matterhorn of American power and then, once he got to the top, feverishly jacked himself off to the attentions of Wall Street for twenty consecutive years–in the process laying the intellectual foundation for a generation of orgiastic greed and overconsumption and turning the Federal Reserve into a a permanent bailout mechanism for the super-rich.

It’s unclear if Wall Street was ever in the room while Alan Greenspan jacked off to its attentions for twenty consecutive years, but otherwise, Taibbi’s characterization works. Because the man with the most power to determine American economic policy was an ideologue: A one-time member of anti-government extremist Ayn Rand’s inner circle who used his powers as Fed chairman, and his persuasive lobbying abilities, to shift economic power dramatically in favor of Wall Street. Few seemed to notice about these changes when he was the “Maestro” and the bubble economy hadn’t exploded spectacularly. Taibbi is justified to call him “The Biggest Asshole in the Universe” as long as Greenspan keeps being invited to explain the economy on Meet the Press panels, weekly.

Now, I’m not big on ad hominem attacks, but I’m happy to make an exception in this case because the “gerbilish mirror-gazer” characterization really does work.

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