Croesus is Cranky

Robert Lenzner writes a column for Forbes called The Croesus Chronicles. I've never seen it before, but if this is indicative of what to expect, maybe it should be renamed The Cranky Chronicles:

The blame game for the disastrous financial crisis is in full, unedifying bloom, especially as it is being played by former chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board, an eminent institution where ordinarily, discretion is better part of valor.

First, there was former chairman Alan Greenspan blaming the bubble-bursting on "the investment community," and vainly trying to deflect the legitimate and well-deserved carping against his free market Ayn Rand ideology.

Croesus thinks it is credible that regulators could have slowed the runaway train and limited the money-center banks from their reckless greed. Greenspan's need to defend himself smacks of worry about his place in history--fiddling while Wall Street burned. Indeed, the not-too-shy Barry Ritholtz of Fusioninvest.com sounded off some days ago, ladling 85% of the blame for the crisis onto Greenspan and an inexplicable 15% onto his successor, Ben Bernanke.

Everyone knows that Greenspan was once a disciple of Rand but he lost all credibility with that crowd when he joined the enemy at the Fed. Central Banking is the anithesis of the free market. How could price fixing be called free market?