It was primarily Alan Greenspan who created the Nasdaq bubble which popped in March of 2000.

Greenbean kept margin rates ridiculously low allowing traders to purchase dot-kaboom stocks with very little money and often using penny stocks as collateral.

With an assist from financial journalist-cheerleaders (CNBC) and lax regulation the Nasdaq soared to 5,200 then crashed evaporating $6 trillion into money heaven.

Most of the newly minted initial public offerings inflating the Nasdaq were illegitimate shells and never would have been brought to market without banker's palms being greased.

Irrational exuberance, from Greenspan, with love.

Why these political and media whores are even given a stage is sick.

Bill (Just-Call-Me-Bubba) Clinton giving the rest of us advice about our finances is a bit like asking the criminal-class bankers how to invest our money. When will we be rid of the likes of Bill Clinton and the rest of the 1990s era ruling elite who set the financial course of our destruction? Clinton needs to retire with his unearned millions and while he is at it, take his hideous wife with him.

what a scumbag bill was and is. bush and obama are from the same swill.

It is not possible to observe Bill Clinton without seeing the totalitarian inversion response to the cries for democracy, basic decency, denial of access of the people and flagrant squandering of life and balance in Haiti.

From my perspective, I see a tragedy of hubris, blindness and 'so-called-elite' blundering and destruction in the paralysis of due process.

Bill Clinton began to open the eyes of the public to the true colors of both himself and Hillary Clinton when when he so blatantly said "its the economy, stupid". This later followed with "How dare you" in response to a protestor at an event. These two clear examples of the inability to speak without an innate bent to humiliate illustrate the degree to which he is removed from legitimacy of process in any notion as leader and earning the nickname 'slick willy'.

He has done more to galvanize long term, documented critique of egregious abuses of power than any given movement. I will forever be thankful to Wikileaks for informing us of the correspondence in which Hillary Clinton called for spying on UN diplomats. Claiming that it is done all the time is a red herring in need of deconstruction..

"This led to the huge run-up in the dollar and therefore the large trade deficit that we saw in the last decade and continue to see today."

I like Baker, but like a lot of economists, he doesn't want to admit that a large part of the trade deficit comes from deliberate offshoring of US industry, not just currency manipulation ...

I get this urge to say that I think I hate Clinton more than I hate Obama. Of course, this is irrational, to think that you hate one sociopath more than another. Clinton's crimes are on par with Obama's. Destruction of the working class (Nafta), his record on personal liberties paved the way for the 'patriot act', and, of course, he has the blood of Waco on his hands.

But I digress. What is the point of comparing terrible evil with monstrous evil.

And Obama's crimes are exacerbated by the fact that he came on the heels of Dubya.

Thanks to the machinations of PR firms, spin doctors and a sell-out media, Dembots still believe that Clinton was some kind of economic genius responsible for a budget "surplus." His administration kept two sets of books and looted the Social Security trust fund to help produce that ongoing fiction. Taking economic advice from Slick Willy is like taking lessons in diplomacy from his murderous ("We came, we saw, he died") spouse, Killary.

Got to go all the way back to 1913, the FED was the engine of doom for about a hundred years. The latest group of thugs has put the petal to the metel. This hastens the fall of the Empire, thank goodness.

Bill Clinton giving advice about the economy , and Henry Kissinger is still giving his opinions on foreign policy.
Just Great

Next from the desk of slick Willy, a self-help book on marital relations.

What does one say to those who **pay** to listen to his advice on the economy - such as that Canadian city officials that invited Clinton (and GWB!) to speak at some economic meeting?

Wonder if Clinton and Obama (certainly not Bush II) ever question their actions as the United States plunged headlong into hell. It was under their watch it happened--mostly. No doubt they will blame their opponents as dishonest persons always do. Their actions--bail-outs, setting the stage for wars, currency manipulation, facilitating outsourcing, deregulation of investment banks--brought about the catastrophe now encompassing us. At least they ought to beg forgiveness before the people they destroyed (though I, for one, feel disinclined to grant them that).

We need journalist in main street media that speak the truth not just what their corporate masters vision of division of American politics and people, united we stand divided we fall and it all goes to the 1%.

Thank you Dean Baker, it needs repeated on nightly TV, and the likes of Clinton, Newt, Delay, Cheney's now siblings getting to talk about the politics of our country like they know more than the rest of us. It is sickening. And I just named a few repug thugs and dims.

Corruption is rampant, always has been, but it is down to the core taking 40 years to get there, but we're there and people are fighting back. Listen up corporate media moguls! We need an Elliott Ness to clean up corruption, the word is mightier than the sword. I would rather be beaten every wee than be subjected to manipulation with cruel/harsh/downgrading/humilating/manipulative words.

I keep forgetting that no one hates Democrats more than progressives do. Since Bill Clinton is far more popular than any progressive walking the earth, this is problematic.

A fairer accouting would acknowledge that Clinton raised taxes on the rich (which he would not have not if he really worked for the elite), leading to the longest period of sustained economic growth in history, with higher income at all levels and precipitous drops in the poverty rate. NB economic bubbles do not cause the poverty rate to go down.

Clinton also made the government and the military smaller and left office tied with FDR as most popular President of the 20th century. Since this information confutes progressive dogma, progressives ignore it.

OK, I know that Establishment political celebrities, especially ex-presidents making a bundle during the Senior Tour phase of their career, are entitled to a rich (in every sense of the term) assortment of remunerative recreational activities or pastimes in the tradition of classic nobility and aristocracy.

That is, just like princes, princesses, dukes, and earls of old, the superannuated political "quality" are much sought after for-- or can insinuate themselves into-- no end of high-toned nominal employment or avocations: sponsoring social service or educational institutes; heading ostensibly altruistic charitable organizations; consulting with corporations and/or joining executive boards; giving speeches; making TV appearances, etc.

And writing books, of course. And I know that because of the tricks and gimmicks endemic to high-level publishing, there exists an entrenched scam, essentially a social fantasy, purporting that the world is anxious to know the esteemed celebrity's thoughts on profound matters-- or be edified by the celebrity's memoirs and reflections on his or her life and times.

So there is this vast bogus scam that predetermines that the Bill Clintons of the world will write books, that said books will be "best-sellers" before even one copy is off the presses, and that the books will be widely and respectfully hyped and reviewed by the Establishment mass-media commentariat.

But what I'd really like to know is-- not to put too fine a point on it-- what ordinary person would waste money and time plowing through these turkeys, which in all probability are largely ghostwritten in the first place?

Oh, I expect that Bill Clinton's latest book will jump off the shelf and into the baskets of desperate and uninspired shoppers looking for a Christmas gift for that "well-informed" Democratic Babbitt of a spouse or brother-in-law. Or maybe even the local MoveOn coordinator.

And there are a couple of commenters who might sleep out overnight to be one of the first in line for a Slick Willie booksigning at a local bookstore chain-- or, more likely, party fundraising event, if they could afford it.

But otherwise, who the hell reads this crap? And who takes it seriously?