of course our critics have alan greenspan you know and i want to go over some just the headlines that prove him wrong china safe official warns fed monetary policies are creating inflationary bubbles stimulate global f.x. intervention so this is lew way of china's state administration of foreign exchange and he said that the fed's quantitative easing program may have some stimulus impact on the u.s. in the short term but also that it would add to global inflation pressure and fuel asset bubbles well let me explain something to you stacy here but about the global financial situation you see you've got the central banks you've got the commercial banks you've got the global banking system as it is and this system is held together by various financial transference mechanisms trading markets that goes on in two thousand and eight it broke and since two thousand and eight central banks have been flooding the globe with credit but because the basic plumbing of the global finance is broken the credit that they are expanding with goes into two places number one paper derivatives that are drivi

the first headline here greenspan challenges critics to prove him wrong really tell me about alan greenspan so this is him on wall street journal your career at this point almost mind me someone of brett farve who was america's best love quarterback and now in retrospect his legacy looks somewhat target tarnished and do you feel that that need to defend your like to see what do you want to be remembered for. well on my bench and view. through a lot of the facts to forward your answer to. my critics. on basically some of the can prove that i am wrong that if my analysis of what the criticisms were are accurate. which i think they go for then i would prefer that people change their minds but. if they prove i'm wrong. which they would be as bipolar disease areas i'm still proving himself wrong were you wrong. in other words your view of the world. your ideology was not right it was not worth your precisely your that's precisely the reason i was shocked because i've been going for forty years or more we're very considerable over which were we were i want to go over some headlines because we of

i mean look at alan greenspan he was completely asleep at the switch we saw an eight trillion dollar housing bubble this wasn't the fault of some sort of worker in pennsylvania who was making thirty thousand dollars a year this was a fall of the government regulators who are in bed with wall street and did not regulate the economy we should be forcing the people who profit the most from this economic collapse wall street who are making now record profits to have to clean up this mess if you analyse the financial speculation tax that dean baker and others have outlined you could make two hundred billion dollars a year now the state budget deficit is seventy one billion so we could give that money back to states and then to help build economic environment even if you had if you were to issue this tax and i think it would be terribly problematic as if it had been growth and all these neural negative side effects you still would have the underlying problem as states are spending too much and so what have governors tried to do andrew cuomo a democratic governor in new york he said he's go

it singles out fed chairman alan greenspan and ben bernanke in particular for criticism. the report also says contrary to popular belief, the government's push to increase home ownership in this country was not a major contributor to the melted down. meanwhile, the east is being hit by another big snowstorm, the fifth in five weeks. this one moved up from tennessee heading toward maine and could dump as much as a foot of snow in some places. this is quickly becoming one of the worst winters on record. meanwhile, clearing all those roads over and over and over again is getting very expensive. whit johnson is in boston tonight, and whit, this is a real budget buster. >> reporter: katie, absolutely. many parts of the northeast are getting hit with more feet of snow in a month than they usually get all winter. this one, this storm is now parking itself over boston and it's going to intensify overnight. >> we can handle it but some people are wimping out with snow. >> reporter: over four feet of snow in 30 days is enough to weaken the toughest of cities. boston's snow removal

specifically criticized in one way or another, federal reserve chairman alan greenspan and ben bernanke, as well as treasury secretaries hank paulson and tim geithner. geithner in his previous role with the federal reserve. >> regulator after regulator, they either chose not to act or turned a blind eye to what was actually going on. >> reporter: the panel also said in examining wall street's conduct, it found several possible criminal violations in need of further investigation. >> those have been sent to the proper authorities to examine. >> reporter: many former regulators have been critical of the government's failure to hold anyone accountable. three years after 4%meltdown, not a single major player has been charged with criminal wrongdoing. after the much smaller savings and loan crisis of the '80s, hundreds were prosecuted, including top executives. today republican members of the panel issued their own report, saying the majority's was too simplistic and largely ignores the global nature of the crisis. it is a critically important issue for this country. >> reporter: like almost

guest: alan greenspan.t under his leadership the federal reserve failed to promulgate mortgage lending set -- standards. they could have cracked down on the screen of risky mortgages that went into the pipeline in the early 2000's. they may many corporate executives. they named the bush administration and treasury secretary hank paulson, who handled the bailout, saying that the bush of administration handle the inconsistently. so they do not say it should not have happened, but they say that bailing out bear stearns, freddie mac and fannie mae, and not believe out lehman brothers, treated uncertainty and panic. host: the current secretary timothy geithner was working with hank paulson. does he get the blame? guest: he gets a little bit of the blame. the new york fed was not the primary regulator for those institutions. even ben bernanke, what the time of the crisis was federal reserve chairman, and still is far, he comes under blame. as late as 2007, he was saying the sub-prime crisis could be contained. ho

guest: alan greenspan. they sit under his leadership the federal reserve failed to promulgate mortgage lending set -- standards. they could have cracked down on the screen of risky mortgages that went into the pipeline in the early 2000's. they may many corporate executives. they named the bush administration and treasury secretary hank paulson, who handled the bailout, saying that the bush of administration handle the inconsistently. so they do not say it should not have happened, but they say that bailing out bear stearns, freddie mac and fannie mae, and not believe out lehman brothers, treated uncertainty and panic. host: the current secretary timothy geithner was working with hank paulson. does he get the blame? guest: he gets a little bit of the blame. the new york fed was not the primary regulator for those institutions. even ben bernanke, what the time of the crisis was federal reserve chairman, and still is far, he comes under blame. as late as 2007, he was saying the sub-prime crisis could be conta

government interventions so far has been working quite nice if you're looking at the us well alan greenspan the central bankers have been doing us us stalking by this artificial. liquidity they have been stalking the housing bubble saying there was no housing bubble not trying in any way to call it down and suddenly it just blows up in china there are more and more that you see even last week you saw again the chinese central bank increasing the reserve ratio for banks one was trying to prevent things from happening and rethink actually managing the economy prudently and much better than then you see in the euros and also in the united states and we just brought up something interesting and i did ask you a provocative question if the chinese take care of their economy better than the u.s. has taken care of its economy over the last thirty or forty years. i wish i could be as optimistic as he was if you went back to two thousand and six in the us the politicians here would say oh they're managing the economy really well look at how strong the housing market is and it turns out that the bad m

that you know we have a lot of pundits or people who are looked at upon as experts say such as alan greenspan right in the past as late free markets or what is going on today so you have a lot of misinformation because certainly where social banks metal so much with markets and bias all securities that are new markets so you know i think that the people the public are really misled by you know social bankers and by you know c.e.o.'s and executives all wall street so that's why i think there's a misunderstanding of exactly how the market operates today all right let's talk about a genuine financial political dictatorship china et albert edwards who is over there it's a side general calls china quote a freak economy. that will collapse soon so j.s. kim is this similar to what you're saying in the us in terms of a structural instability or is it slightly different to walk us through how this might occur sure i also think yeah there certainly bubbles in china you know certainly there is a stock market but that's due to you know basically every central bank i think is a. game of chicken right beca

some of the questions that have been asked of ben bernanke you before congress and then recently alan greenspan was asked this too in several interviews with is the fed going to be able to withdraw some of this money that they've been creating over the past year or two how are they going to avoid inflation and i think you me in a way the environment the collapse of the environment around the world is a weight is a big sinkhole for all of this capital b. uncreated absolutely two thousand and eleven year of the flood the year two thousand and ten was one of the worst years in world history for high impact floods but just three weeks into the new year two thousand and eleven has already had an entire year's worth of mega floods those are the sort of environmental collapse is the deflation they need to offset the virtual inflation the forest burns up when a desert desert for cation kicks in and china it's no longer viable economically and that's deflation and they'll say well we needed that to offset our inflation so at the end of the day you end up with a virtual avatars representing us living in

the commission headed by phil angelinas says government policymakers like alan greenspan, timmy geithnerd ben bernanke are all to blame. it also points the finger at mortgage lenders saying government watchdog groups were asleep. ultimately the report says human error created the crisis. many democrats support the findings but republicans say the commission lacked objectivity. >>> pet openers in february may like this news. there are cheaper spay and neuter rates all next month in 20 veterinarian clinics. for cat owners it is cheap. for dogs, $115 for a female dog. $50 for a male dog under 26 pounds. it all depend on weight. just schedule an appointment and call the number on your screen. >>> hidden chambers in one of the seven wonders of the world is what they are saying about egypt's great pyramid. john houdine says many were called to be buried with all their possessions in the rooms, but the rooms have never been found at the great pyramid. the architect who has studied the pyramid for 12 jeers years will go on a research mission to the pyramid to find the hidden chambers. >>> the re

people talk about it a lot, people fret about it, alan greenspan used to, you know, fret about it in congressional al testimony regularly for years, and it just hasn't happened, the world doesn't want it to happen. we are too interconnected, yes there will be frictions, but i don't see the likelihood of an all-out trade war being very high, for one thing, china is a country that can't afford a worldwide trade war, they are too trade dependent and there are other countries that are in the developing world like india and brazil that i think will be very constructive in trying to create new trade agreements and new trade understandings. they also don't want trade wars, and they are much more sympathetic to our situation, for example, as it relates to china and its currency, they are also suffering from china's undervalued currency and they want some relief on that, so i think the world is moving in a positive direction and i wouldn't worry that much about a trade war. >> rose: the idea of creating jobs, what have we not done that we might have done and, therefore, must do? >> well, what

findings: government regulators from two administrations, as well as former federal reserve chair alan greenspan and current fed chairman ben bernanke, all missed opportunities to help prevent the crisis. mortgage lenders, wall street and a shadow banking system knowingly engaged in risky lending and excessive borrowing while leveraging debt to dangerously high levels. and there was a systemic breakdown in ethics. phil angelides is the chairman. and he joins us now. >> thank you. >> woodruff: let's start with wall street and the financial institutions. what were the mistakes that were made by the people there. >> what we found in our report which, by the way, is some a some 500-page report detailed based on 700 interviews, 19 public hearings and reviews of millions of pages of documents is on wall street we found dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance and risk management. we found astounding instances where corporate executives didn't know the risks their companies were taking or did know what they were taking and did so knowingly. so, for example, at a.i.g., most of the major executives of

as alan greenspan talked about, we're going to have to make these changes, it's just do we do them in the middle of a crisis or do we do it to avoid the crisis? that's a significant part of this. my colleagues mentioned we need presidential leadership right now. the chairman has talked about this committee doing its job. i could not agree more that the president needs to lead right now. these issues we're talking about, and you have been around and seen this, dr. elmendorf, it's much easier to get reelected by giving money away. none of us want to make these tough political boats. but we have a democratic president -- these political votes. we of democratic president, democratic senate, and republican house. the president would lead come join the parties together, we could do what's right for the american people. but it's up to him to lead. he's the president, he's the only one with the bully pulpit. our little microphones here don't echo through the country. i think he failed on the state of the union, but he has plenty of opportunities. we have the debt ceiling coming up. he has his

as alan greenspan talked about, we're going to have to make these changes, it's just do we do them in the middle of a crisis or do we do it to avoid the crisis? that's a significant part of this. my colleagues mentioned we need presidential leadership right now. the chairman has talked about this committee doing its job. i could not agree more that the president needs to lead right now. these issues we're talking about, and you have been around and seen this, dr. elmendorf, it's much easier to get reelected by giving money away. none of us want to make these tough political boats. but we have a democratic president -- these political votes. we of democratic president, democratic senate, and republican house. the president would lead come join the parties together, we could do what's right for the american people. but it's up to him to lead. he's the president, he's the only one with the bully pulpit. our little microphones here don't echo through the country. i think he failed on the state of the union, but he has plenty of opportunities. we have the debt ceiling coming up. he has his

as alan greenspan talked about, we're going to have to make these changes, it's just do we do them in the middle of a crisis or do we do it to avoid thcrisis? that's a significant part of this. my colleagues mentioned we need presidential leadership right now. the chairman has talked about this committee doing its job. i could not agree more that the president needto lead right now. these issues we're talking about, and you have been around and seen this, dr. elmendorf, it's much easier to get reelected by giving money away. none of us want to make these tough political boats. but we have a democratic president -- these political votes. we of democratic president, democratic senate, and republican house. the president would lead come join the parties together, we could do what's right for the american people. but it's up to him to lead. he's the president, he's the only one with the bully pulpit. our little microphones here don't echo through the country. i think he failed on the state of the union, but he has plenty of opportunities. we have the debt ceiling coming up. he has his bud

. >> timothy, again, alan greenspan take your place in our rogue's gallery alongside: sacks, merrill lynch, and the villains named in the final report by the financial crisis commission. the report includes graphic evidence of the effect of their collective failures. it shows how the housing out meltdown delivered a staggering blow. wiping out 15 trillion dollars, far more than the dock, bubble burst calif., arizona, florida. those are the sand estates. this is how home prices rose and fell over 20 years. their rest of the country's laws smaller variations. the report blames schoolman stock merrill lynch for not telling investors about its financial condition. and the federal reserve to stop troubling practices. the offense under greenspan commanded a pitiful failure. and new york could of rain is some of the large banks. the nightmare is the treasury said retiree. >> the president put effort into wall street reform, to ensure, what happened to leading up to and during that crisis never repeats itself. >> the presidential commission was modeled on the bipartisan board set up to look

and others -- the former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan and others. our report describes how this laissez-faire approach opened wide gaps in the government oversight into key parts of our financial system in which trillions of dollars were at risk. these included the huge trading market in the over-the-counter derivatives and a less regulated part of our financial system that came to be called the shadow banking system. and in some areas, where federal oversight existed, the government allowed financial firms to select their preferred regulators, setting off a race to the weakest supervisor. we, however, do not accept the view that regulators lacked power to protect the financial system. they had ample power in many arenas and they chose not to use it. and it were regulators thought they lacked authority, they could have saw new powers to fulfill their mission of protecting our country's financial system. let me highlight for examples from our report were strong and effective regulatory intervention it would have made it unnecessary for all of us to b

as alan greenspan talked about, we're going to have to make these changes, it's just do we do them in the middle of a crisis or do we do it to avoid the crisis? that's a significant part of this. my colleagues mentioned we need presidential leadership right now. the chairman has talked about this committee doing its job. i could not agree more that the president needs to lead right now. these issues we're talking about, and you have been around and seen this, dr. elmendorf, it's much easier to get reelected by giving money away. none of us want to make these tough political boats. but we have a democratic president -- these political votes. we of democratic president, democratic senate, and republican house. the president would lead come join the parties together, we could do what's right for the american people. but it's up to him to lead. he's the president, he's the only one with the bully pulpit. our little microphones here don't echo through the country. i think he failed on the state of the union, but he has plenty of opportunities. we have the debt ceiling coming up. he has his

crisis and the people that they assigned the major blame with were the federal reserve chairman alan greenspanho was in the office before, and the current federal reserve chairman ben bernanke. >> that will sit well with a lot of people this morning as well. >> not so much. >> rebecca, thanks. >> can the markets stay above 12 thousand is the big question, the psychological benchmark. >> we will see. the other big question can we get something that will translate into jobs as we look for more on that. >> people at home are waiting for that. more news now with jeff glor. hi, jeff. >> good morning to everyone at home. >>> egypt violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police in their third day. protesters play cat and mouse overnight with thousands of ot police in cairo and recent events in tunisia and demanding the ouster of mubarak in power since 1981. >>> another arab country pushed the regime change this morning. yemen tens of thousands of protesters turned out in the capital demanding their leader's ouster and calling for more demonstration tomorrow. >>> drug smuggers in mexico

many put a lot of blame on alan greenspan for not stopping mortgage lending to people that could notan explanation except when you see the same problems in england, spain, germany, under very different federal reserve style regulations. host: tell us about the process regarding the commission. who did you meet and have as witnesses? what did it take to write about this 545 page report? guest: congress created the commission in 12 -- 2008 for 2009. we were appointed in march or april. i was appointed by mitch mcconnell. there were six appointed by democrats and a quarter by republicans. we begin meeting in the summer of 2009. we had some hearings and a staff of about 50. we have a subpoena power and cooperation of the oversight agencies such as the federal reserve. people with interest in oversight of the financial system. we met on a very regular basis to decide what would be fruitful and what were the witnesses we would like to have a in our hearings. begot government witnesses, hank paulson -- we got the government witnesses, hank paulson, other executives from citigroup, goldman s

many put a lot of blame on alan greenspan for not stopping mortgage lending to people that could not pay. it seems like it could be an explanation except when you see the same problems in england, spain, germany, under very different federal reserve style regulations. host: tell us about the process regarding the commission. who did you meet and have as witnesses? what did it take to write about this 545 page report? guest: congress created the commission in 12 -- 2008 for 2009. we were appointed in march or april. i was appointed by mitch mcconnell. there were six appointed by democrats and a quarter by republicans. we begin meeting in the summer of 2009. we had some hearings and a staff of about 50. we have a subpoena power and cooperation of the oversight agencies such as the federal reserve. people with interest in oversight of the financial system. we met on a very regular basis to decide what would be fruitful and what were the witnesses we would like to have a in our hearings. begot government witnesses, hank paulson -- we got the government witnesses, hank paulson, other exec