Last week I ranted that Greenspan was at fault for leading us into the mortgage mess and I was honored to see today that I'm not alone. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told Bloomberg that the U.S. economy risks tumbling into a recession because of the subprime crisis and a "mess" left by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Bloomberg quotes him in its story: "I'm very pessimistic. It's not just the housing sector. Over the last five to six years our economy has been bolstered by the real estate sector."

Stiglitz discusses how Americans have withdrawn billions from home equity to keep the economy moving. He goes on to explain why he blames Greenspan: "Alan Greenspan made a mess of all this. He pushed out too much liquidity at the wrong time. He supported the tax cut in 2001, which is the beginning of these problems. He encouraged people to take out variable rate mortgages. That helped to create the subprime crisis."

I think it's time for Greenspan to quietly fade away and stop making statements around the world that cuts into what current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is trying to do to fix his mess.

Lita Epstein has written more than 20 books including the "Complete Idiot's Guide to the Federal Reserve."

Stiglitz says Greenspan's mess may lead to recession originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.