Reply #14: He also forgot to listen to Alan Greenspan...

[Mutley]

http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2005-12-02T201117Z_01_BAU250698_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-ECONOMY-GREENSPAN-DC.XML

LONDON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan offered twin warnings at home and abroad on Friday about the urgency for the United States to tackle its huge budget deficits to preserve the global economy's health.

In a keynote speech in London ahead of his final appearance as a key participant in a Group of Seven finance ministers' gathering, Greenspan deplored a move toward unstable budgets and trade protectionism that could trigger a messy unwinding of world financial imbalances.

"If...the pernicious drift toward fiscal instability in the United States and elsewhere is not arrested and is compounded by a protectionist reversal of globalization, the adjustment process could be quite painful for the world economy," he told a conference.

The 79-year-old Greenspan, who steps down at the end of January, appeared intent on rounding out his 18-year tenure with a sharper call for discipline in government spending while time remains to get U.S. finances under control.