Hmmm ... Let me count the ways. Alan Greenspan really says it like it is ... and as it should be told!

Alan Greenspan counts the ways! He really hit home with his latest book and my latest "can't put it down" read.

To begin with, the Iraq war is indeed all about Oil. That would have to be Number One in his count-down.

The tax cuts for the wealthy and the deficit in general are easily Number Two. The next bunch are directly off the web and worth thinking about as we try to make it from day to day in our homes and offices around the country:

"3. Cuts in Education and Student Loan/Grant Programs
4. Social Security Privatization
5. Changes in Bankruptcy Laws
6. Interest Rate Increases from Rising Federal Debt (e.g. mortgage risk)
7. Caps on Legal Judgments
8. Decreases in Workplace Protections (Health Costs)
9. Reductions in Environmental Protection (Health Costs)
8. Further Declines in Union Power (increased job loss risk, income more uncertain)
10. Further Reduction in the Real Minimum Wage
11. Changes in overtime law, including “comp time” that is at the discretion of the employer, not the employee.
12. The dangers from non-inspected or improperly inspected food imports, especially beef from Mexico and South America. (health).
13. There are proposed cuts in food stamps. Instead of reducing farm subsidies, the proposal is to cut 300,000 people from the Food Stamp program, and to also cut WIC and school lunch programs for a total saving of 300 million annually.
14. Proposed reductions in low income housing development grants and housing assistance.
15. Fewer people covered under private and government health insurance.
16. $55/bl oil and inaction on energy policy means more money spent at the pumps for households making it harder for them to meet other expenses.
17. When income taxes fall and social programs are cut back, we lose "automatic stabilizers," many of which were instituted after the Great Depression. The loss of these stabilizing influences accentuates both booms and recessions imparting additional variation and uncertainty into household income.
18. I should have added this up front. Because down-side risk will be covered, i.e. society will not let people starve no matter how poorly they have behaved previously, individuals will assume more risk than if they faced the down-side risk due to what is called moral hazard. This distorts the proper functioning of the social insurance market and causes individuals to assume more risk than is optimal."

Greenspan calls "The Age of Turbulence" a "psychoanalysis of himself." It begins (first half) with his early life, describing the events that provided his learning experiences (including his desire to become a baseball player, then a jazz musician), and then goes to his life of implementing those lessons. All I can say is "Wow!"