This May, the University of Texas Press will publish a book by Robert Auerbach, called “Deception and Abuse at the Fed: Henry B. Gonzalez Battles Alan Greenspan’s Bank.” In it, Auerbach questions the legitimacy of Greenspan’s Ph.D. thesis from NYU, implying that the paper was “obtained in a few months with little more rigor than a matchbook-cover art degree,” and that were you or I ever privy to reading the thing, it would be plainly evident that Greenspan was blowing the half the degree-granting faculty. Luckily for Greenspan, that’ll probably never happen, because, according to Auerbach, New York University is in cahoots with the former fed chairman to keep Auerbach/other interested parties from every laying eyes on that puppy (Auerbach says NYU’s provost, David McLaughlin, claims that dissertations from the 1970s were not placed in the library, and therefore unavailable, which Auerbach doesn’t buy FOR A SECOND).
Obviously this whole thing is making Bernanke tweak his nipples in delight, and our sources in Washington tell us he’s taken to walking around town with his paper tucked under his arm, replying with feigned innocence when people ask what it is, “Oh just the musty old thesis. Needed to check something; still holds up pretty well. See: Benjy Bernanke, MIT Class of 79.” We’ll do an extended review of the book when it officially comes out, but from the unedited copy we were able to get our hands on today, here’s the other shit Greenspan doesn’t want you to know about that you can likely expect to read, barring any major rewrites.
Auerbach alleges that :
1. Greenspan hasn’t read any of Ayn Rand’s books.
2. All of his addresses to Congress involved typing a speech at a third-grade level then using Microsoft’s thesaurus to replace every single word with the most fancy-sounding substitute — even if he didn’t know what it meant.
3. It is a lie of the highest order that Greenspan conducts 80% of his business out of the tub; the author claims “evidentiary proof” that “all the magic happens on the can.”
4. His basement wall is littered with photos of, articles by and home addresses of “infidels I must exterminate,” including Robert Auerbach, Jim Grant, Bill Fleckenstein, and Alan Abelson.
5. BG has 20/20 vision and wears the glasses to “look smart.”
6. He never dated Barbara Walters. Actually briefly dated Geraldo Rivera (then Jerry Rivers) during his late-70s “experimental phase,” and Phyllis Diller for the better half of the 1980s.
7. He lies about his age. He is really only 42.
8. Greenspan inflated his resume credentials; actually spent most of the 1960s and early 1970s running “Easy Al’s Used Cars” in Dubuque, Iowa.
9. During undergrad his source of income was from peddling phony tips on penny stocks, then cleaning up shorting them, and working as a phone sex operator. The book goes into graphic detail, noting that Greenspan was known for his unique style, telling callers things like, “At this juncture you should feel your labia minora becoming engorged. (Since retiring, Greenspan has apparently fired the phone line back up, to much success. $3.99/minute, call 203-890-2000)
Dr. Greenspan’s Amazing Invisible Thesis [Barron’s]




An insane Alan Greenspan told an audience of investment bankers, private-equity companies, and Weekend at Bernie’s fans gathered in Chicago for the Midwest ACG Capital Connection conference that he, “didn’t know enough to comment on an agreement among Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase to increase liquidity in the market for asset-backed commercial paper.” We’re assuming that when one litigious young banker asked, during the Q&A section of the program, “Then why did you say last week, and I quote: ‘[The $75 billion Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit] could conceivably make [conditions affecting investor psychology] somewhat adverse because if you believe some form of artificial non-market force is propping up the market you don’t believe the market price has exhausted itself” and more or less flat out say that the super-fund will have dire repercussions,” Greenspan answered the question with the question, “Let me ask you this, litigious young banker probably from Goldman Sachs – that Bernanke fellow, he kind of sucks, no?” and then quickly changed the subject by warning, “there will be a crash in Canada, I just don’t know when.”





If there’s one thing you can say about Bloomberg’s Caroline Baum, it’s that she’s not afraid to take a hockey stick to the knees of an 81 year-old man. Yesterday it was crotchety old Carl Icahn, tomorrow is anyone’s guess. We’re going with an outpatient at Sloan-Kettering. Today’s recipient of Caro’s best (and mostly successful) attempt at a Tonya Harding is, as the head would imply, Alan Greenspan. Basically, her point is that he’s your crazy old grandfather/local homeless man who should’ve been put in a home/half-way house years ago, who won’t stop talking to himself and gesturing wildly, who you should just completely ignore. Let him talk ‘til he’s blue in the face, you don’t have time for his inanity and self-involved bull shit. He’s basically a child but guess what? You’ve already got a baby and unlike Greenspan, he’s rarely wets the bed anymore, if ever.
Leave it to Alan “It’s not easy being” Greenspan to ruin our newly minted favorite holiday—Biggest LBO Ever Day. We thought we’d reached a point where we could expect, if not full on participation in the breaking of the coal burning energy plant-shaped piñata that Carney picked up on the way to work this morning, at least some level of cooperation on this joyous occasion. But apparently we thought wrong. Greenspan, like always, had to go and ruin it, like he ruined Schwarzman’s birthday (yeah, like we could really be expected to show up with a huge salsa stain down the front of our dress), like he ruined Sam Zell’s Purim Party ‘04, like he ruins EVERYTHING! 


