It is said that Greenspan is increasingly trying to defend himself from charges (including from people like me) that he intentionally (or ignorantly) mismanaged the various crisis situations over the years when he was Fed Chairman, essentially blowing bubbles on purpose through his entire tenure at The Fed.

I believe this criticism is unfair.

It gives Greenspan cover for what he really did, which is far worse.

Greenspan's tenure included the now-infamous period in 1991 when the last pieces of Glass Steagall was repealed and the lines blurred between banks and investment banks, and his willful embracing of that reckless loosening of regulatory oversight.

It includes the willful refusal to regulate any portion of the OTC derivative markets.

Now let me be clear - I have no problem with speculation and speculators, so long as when they blow it, they fail in the free market without government intervention.

But these bankers intentionally, willfully, and with malice aforethought stuck their speculative tentacles into the regulated banking sector, with the most egregious portion of this being the credit default swap market, where margin supervision has been essentially zero.

Nor did it stop with hedge funds and investment banks. We allowed the same games to be played with so-called "monoline" insurance companies, who quickly seized on the opportunity to take what was a stodgy business (selling wraps on municipal obligations) and blow it into an insanely profitable one (selling the same wraps on CDOs and RMBSs.) The only problem with this is that the "stodgy" business model, when extended to these CDOs, was in fact insanely risky because you in fact need ten or even one hundred times the capital to support such policy writing, but the rules were not changed to reflect that.

And now we have everyone involved, from Greenspan to Bernanke to Congress trying to duck their responsibility for what they did (and didn't) to fuel an insane credit-driven "crack up boom."

Unfortunately this is the common thread that always seems to run through Washington DC when things go bad. Nobody wants to take "credit" for the immense cock-ups that they create, but they're all happy to bask in the sun during the good times.

What people never seem to understand is that you can't create "overly good" without there being "overly bad" - the common law of business balance prohibits you from getting something for nothing. It cannot be done, although people over the years have continually made claims that they have discovered the financial equivalent of perpetual motion.

It would be nice if we had some even coverage of this in the media, but that would require that people tell the truth, and be challenged openly when they don't. Our "financial media" has no interest in that, because it destroys their ability to hang on every word that comes out of Bernanke's or Greenspan's mouth and treat it as if it came from Caesar - or perhaps even from the mouth of Jesus.

Yeah.

Small business optimism came in at levels not seen in 26 years (which would be when they started recording the data!), and I'm not talking about positive levels either. I guess "bubble TV" didn't get through to them eh? Then again as someone who has run a small business (that turned into a medium-sized one) I can tell you that the cash register never lies, and when there's nothing in The Till you tend to give the finger to the BubbleHeads - and hiring plans.

This is a serious problem for America and our economic prospects, because despite what Bubble TV will parade out there small business is responsible for a huge chunk of employment in this country, in fact, more than "big business." When small business pulls in the "Now Hiring" sign you better watch out..... and if what I've seen around here is any guide, the "Space Available" and "Going Out Of Business" sign is the one that is most prevalent at the moment.

AMD warned and Alcoa missed yesterday, with Apple getting a downgrade. Rumors are that iPOD growth in the present quarter are in fact zero. Market saturation is a beautiful thing no?

Gee, its about time. What have I been talking about with regards to "analysts" always being behind the curve?

One thing I've learned through my more than 20 years in the Capital Markets is that you may as well ignore so-called "Analysts" unless you're daytrading and using their calls as very short-term trading tool to "piggyback" on the idiots who listen to them. Yet they continue to have jobs because retail investors continue to get their pockets picked and come back for more, over and over again. Barf.

This morning Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) has a nice "feature" on CNBC talking about their new coffee. As a coffee connoisseur my opinion of Starbucks (and Peets for that matter) is that both are worthless for the person who truly cares about their coffee.

The key to truly good coffee is found in the beans. They have a roughly 2 week "shelf life", if kept in a sealed container, from the time of roasting until the time that they deserve to go straight into the trashcan. This creates some serious problems for cafes such as Starbucks that wants to have coffee in bags in their stores, because turnover can't be controlled that tightly.

So what does Starbucks do? They overroast the beans, essentially turning them into hunks of charcoal. Once burned the sensitivity to time is reduced, but what you start with is, in my opinion, undrinkable. In recent years they also replaced all their quality espresso machines with "superautomatics" that make a drink with the push of a button, thereby allowing them to hire far cheaper help.

But a superautomatic will never, irrespective of how expensive it is, produce a cup that has the quality that a person who knows what they're doing will.