March 30, 2009

FT should not give Alan Greenspan voice just so he can utter platitudes.

Sir you keep on giving voice, more than a third of your most important Comment page, second week in a row, to someone like Alan Greenspan who did nothing with all the voice he had to save us from this crisis, much the contrary. And then salting the wounds, he only uses it to utter platitudes.

In “Equities show us the way to a recovery” March 30, he says “Restoration of normal global lending could be as effective a stimulus as any fiscal programme of which I am aware” and that “restoring a viable degree of financial intermediation is the key to recovery. Failure to do so will significantly reduce any positive impact from a fiscal stimulus”. Do you believe there are some of your readers that are not fully aware of the above?

Do you believe there are some of your readers that are not fully aware of that a rising stock market could also be beneficial as the creation of capital gains augment spending and gross domestic product, whereas capital losses lower spending.

I do not wish to imply that Greenspan should be silenced forever, of course not, but the least we should be able to expect in order to give him additional voice is that he uses it for something really important.

Times are hard enough for the press but if the Financial Times does not do a better job of defending the quality of one of its most important pages then it will encounter even harder times.