Ben ought to just shoot this guy

So, it's just a few short hours away from probably the most important, regularly scheduled monetary policy announcement in Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's career - financial markets are on edge waiting for word from the Fed - and look what hits the newswire.

Greenspan doubts Fed's ability to prevent recession
1 hour, 25 minutes ago

Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan cast doubt on the ability of the central bank to prevent a US recession in an interview to appear on Thursday.
Greenspan told the German weekly Die Zeit that the Fed or political policies could "probably not" keep the world's biggest economy from sliding into recession, as financial markets widely expected the US central bank to cut its main lending rate.
...
Some analysts have said that low interest rates under Greenspan's watch were responsible in part for the US housing bubble that burst last year, and led to the current financial crisis.

Die Zeit quoted him as saying he found it hard to understand that "the Federal Reserve policy had somehow allowed housing and stock prices to rise."

Fallout from the crisis, which began with a meltdown of the US market for high-risk, or subprime, mortgages, continues to rock international financial markets and now threatens the US economy with a recession.

For Greenspan however, the turmoil was "entirely the result of market forces at a global level."

He found it hard to understand that "the Federal Reserve policy had somehow allowed housing and stock prices to rise" and what we see in both housing and credit markets today is "entirely the result of market forces at a global level".

At least he's consistent - he's stickin' to his story.

Though, clearly, he is now even more disconnected from reality than when he was the Federal Reserve Chairman.