during my research i came across a fascinating memo written by allen greenspan and addressed to nelson rockefeller, president ford's vice president of the time. dated january 7, 1975, greenspan's memo was a well-intentioned but remarkably naÏve appeal to politicians in washington to engage in straight talk with the american people. in it he explained that rising oil prices had altered the national economy and there would be no going back to the 1960s when in his words, the base of our society and the base of our economy was secure. he continued, now the real world has begun to press on the average american and could very well devastate family life and standards of living if we do not confront our longer-term problems and protect the united states from the ever increasing dangers to which it is becoming exposed. the united states said greenspan had to confront this addiction to oil. the immediate problem with oil, although i would list their national defense posture in fiscal erosion as equally critical he said, it is important for the american people to understand how the oil crisis em

allen greenspan told everybody there was no housing bubble, as did ben bernanke, and all sort of smart people were saying all sorts of things. they proved not to be true. >> you are saying to question power, and looking at iraq, all these people just kind of crowd sourcing this criticism and looking at the claims and doing their research, i found that interesting. that's something we didn't have in vietnam. >> p.j. crowley, we will discuss this more, the legacy of p.j. crowley after we take this break. ♪ i think i'm falling ♪ i think i'm falling ♪ i think i'm falling [ male announcer ] this is your moment. ♪ for you [ male announcer ] this is zales, the diamond store. shop our largest diamond store online anytime at zales.com. ♪ my hair is gone ♪ cheap cologne ♪ motor home ♪ i'm the rocket man! [ both ] ♪ rocket man ♪ burning out his fuse up here alone ♪ burning out his fuse up here alone? ahh. [ male announcer ] crystal clear fender premium audio. one of many premium features available on the all-new volkswagen passat. the 2012 motor trend car of the year. ♪ and i think it's gonna be

interior transportation, homeland security, agriculture, navy and air force, former chairman of that allen greenspanrmer retired from shell oil and kraft foods. all of them are concerned about our growing dependence on petroleum and the impact on our national security and economic well-being. as was mentioned before earlier this year, the department of energy announced that u.s. imports of tetrault trolling declined from 12.5 million barrels a day in 2005 to 8.6 billion barrels of oil this year. u.s. depends to drop from 60% to 46%. this 31% reduction in our level of imports in just seven years is a remarkable achievement. some of this is due to the recession but most is due to come as mentioned, fuel efficiency and even more importantly significant domestic production and able by technologies. so far, so good but here's the rub. when americans oil imports dropped, our foreign oil expenditures climbed by almost 50% from $247 billion in $252,367,000,000,000 this year. the share of oil imports in the overall trade deficit grew from 32% in 2005 to 251% this year. worst of all the price of a gallon of g