I am unconvinced by Alan Greenspan's latest non-apolgetic apology

He wrote it for the Financial Times.

But here is my 1 + 1 = 2 viewpoint, simplified as much as possible: Greenspan was a huge proponent of homeownership as a wealth and economic growth contributor:

The choice to buy a home is a decision to plant a family's roots in a community with all the implicit incentives to make that community thrive. Where home ownership flourishes, it is no surprise to find increased neighborhood stability, more civic-minded residents, better school systems, and reduced crime rates.

Just as important is the effect of home ownership on a household's ability to accumulate assets. For most households, home ownership represents a significant financial milestone and is an important vehicle for ongoing savings. The Federal Reserve's 1998 triennial Survey of Consumer Finances indicates that home ownership represented 44 percent of gross assets for families earning $50,000 or less annually. Further, investment in residential property has been generally more stable than other types of investment, and it is perceived to be largely permanent.

With these important benefits, an increased rate of home ownership has been chosen by our society as a national priority, with many public- and private-sector resources devoted to achieving this goal. Indeed, measurable progress has been made toward this end, with the overall rate of home ownership reaching 68 percent, a new high, in the third quarter of last year. In assessing the opportunity for home ownership in underserved markets, the Census Bureau reports significant gains. The homeownership rate for blacks and Hispanics, between 1997 and 2001, grew at more than double the pace for the general population. Additionally, the homeownership rate among households earning less than the median income increased more than three times the pace for households with incomes above the median.

And as I posted last week (and several other times in the last couple of years), he left the Fed Funds rate too low during his tenure:

Using the metric of his rule, Taylor gives the Fed mixed grades in its more recent performance. At the annual economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, last year, Taylor showed that between 2002 and 2005, the Fed increased the federal funds target rate more slowly than his rule would have suggested. Had the Fed followed the rule, much of the boom in housing starts as well as the subsequent bust might have been mitigated, according to Taylor.

UPDATE: Greg Ip reports similarly, and notes that Greenspan and Taylor are good friends:

Speaking at the same Jackson Hole event, Mr. Taylor used his own model to argue that rates were kept too low for too long, overheating housing prices and setting the stage for a bust. He repeated the charge before Congress in February.

The critique is painful for Mr. Greenspan. The men have been friends since the mid-1970s, when Mr. Greenspan was chairman of President Ford's Council of Economic Advisers and Mr. Taylor was on staff. Mr. Greenspan later hired Mr. Taylor to work with his consulting firm, Townsend-Greenspan & Co.

Earlier this year, Mr. Greenspan invited Mr. Taylor to lunch at his office and challenged his former protégé's assessment. In Mr. Greenspan's view, if the Fed's policies were to blame, the housing bubble would have been mostly limited to the U.S. Yet, he argued, many other countries had housing bubbles, too. A better culprit, he suggested, was the glut of savings globally. Savers were competing to make loans, keeping long-term interest rates low in many countries and fueling housing demand.

Mr. Taylor countered that there was no savings glut, citing data that showed world savings equaled world investment. Mr. Greenspan called Mr. Taylor's data "irrelevant." Interest rates are affected by intended investment rather than actual investment, Mr. Greenspan argued, adding that intentions are hard to measure.