I'm so disgusted by what Greenspan says in this interview that i don't even have anything to say.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan today said the risk of a US recession had increased, and denied that regulators were caught unawares by the problems which caused the global credit crunch.

In an interview with the BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Greenspan said: "We did know what was going on and the reason we didn't stop them was that to a large extent these types of questionably egregious actions are taken by people who have their own money invested."

"Hedge funds, who are presumably the largest culprit of all of this, are organisations in the US in which wealthy investors invest," he said. "I must admit that I do not have considerable concern about their net worth going from 40 million to five million, which in many cases is what's happened."

He argued that people generally benefit from movements in financial markets. "Financial markets tend to be increasingly complex and volatile. That volatility actually contributes to the stability of the real economy, that is levels of production and employment."

He added he hoped that people realise that "standards of living are higher because of it".

Grrr.....