On the flip side, there should be more concern in Brazil.

Because the economy is so strong, import growth is also very strong, and that import growth is eroding trade surpluses. Surpluses of more than a billion a month might be over.

Where the credit is really due is in the early part of Greenspan's tenure: being faced with the aftershocks of the Wall Street crash in 1987 and dealing with that quite well. He confronted some very serious potential crises and got us to a point where we avoided them and are better off than we might have been otherwise.

So you put a little Jamaica in the fund, a little South Africa, a little Thailand. In a global crisis, all three will be a dog. But if you're a [hedge fund] manager, you don't care. You just want to offer as much diversification as possible, with as much yield as possible.

The flip side of humiliation is pride.

The flip side is that there are a lot of issues that are unresolved, such as overcrowding. But it doesn't seem as if the [Democratic] candidates have been able to put together a coherent, cogent and compelling critique of the mayor and a blueprint of what they would do differently.