In a televised speech by Thomas Woods,  author of the New York Times bestseller “Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse“, had some gems of concise insight that we thought we’d echo here:

“The recession is just the economy trying to re-adjust after all the mal-investment and misdirected resources caused by the Fed in the first place.”

“When you’re the “Soviet commisar” in charge of money and interest rates, when you’re Alan Greenspan, you can create money out of thin air and now the banks have a ton to lend and can keep the illusion going.  But it’s an illusion all the same.”

“This is not just a matter of “We need a little more regulation”.  That is the most irresponsible, intellectual laziness imaginable.  …  If the institutional structure gives rise to this [boom bust cycle], ecourages excessive risks by making credit artificially cheap — you can have all the regulation you want …

…  It is the institutions that are giving rise to this.  It is the money itself.”

And our favorite summary of where things are today:

“What we have here is a slow-motion train wreck as we watch Washington and the Fed trying to put everything back together.  … Who is being held up to us as the people we should listen to?  First let’s talk about Ben Bernanke…  Why be awed by a man whose investigators examined the mortgage market a couple years ago and found that it was healthy as ever?  Why should we listen to a guy who said the housing bust will be over by December 2008?   Why should we have listened to Hank Paulson, who told us in 2007, the world economy was in the ‘best shape’ he had ever seen it?   These are the people we are supposed to care about?  Seriously, you should want to do the exact opposite of what these people recommend.”

“Instead of listening to [Bernanke, Paulson, et al], who have been wrong for years, who have given us the wrong advice, who have contributed to the largest asset bubble in the history of mankind… Instead of listening to them, let’s listen to the people who saw it coming.  … Why don’t we listen to them?  Their phones are not exactly ringing off the hook from the Obama administration.  The Obama administration seems to be of the opinon that the bigger blockhead you were, the more surpised you were by the crisis, the less sensible advice you have — well, the more we want to hear you.   But if you saw this coming?  Forget about it.”

The complete speech (via C-Span) is available here, and is well worth listening to:

http://www.booktv.org/watch.aspx?ProgramId=PC-10285