Subprime post mortem

It's official: Lesley Stahl has become 60 Minutes' real estate correspondent. After exploring discount brokers in a piece featuring Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, Stahl has scored an interview with former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. CBS is promoting the interview, which airs Sunday, as a confession from Greenspan that he missed the threat subprime lending posed to the economy as the Fed slashed interest rates to the floor to stave off recession.

"It was our job to unfreeze the American banking system if we wanted the economy to function. This required that we keep rates modestly low," Greenspan tells 60 Minutes.

In a video promoting Sunday's piece, Stahl said  Greenspan doesn't think the current turmoil in housing markets will cause a recession -- he's "far more concerned about inflation" (sound familiar?). Stahl said Greenspan told her that when he was Fed chair, he had a long run of low inflation -- not just in the U.S., but worldwide -- which was "a huge factor in his being able to prevent recession." Now the pendulum is swinging back, Greenspan thinks, and inflation is the big worry.

Some critics thought 60 Minutes take on discounters was somewhat superficial and a little belated. With Greenspan, the problem is it doesn't really matter what he thinks now. He presumably did 60 Minutes to plug his new book, out Sept. 17.

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