Texas Congressman Ron Paul has blasted former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, calling him "intellectually arrogant" after he blamed free market capitalism for the current financial crisis and diverted questions away from his own actions.

"I think he's trying to save his place in history but I don't think he's going to achieve it unless he confesses and goes back to his roots and goes back to writing articles for Ayn Rand." Paul told Neil Cavuto on Fox Business yesterday evening.

"There's no way he's going to escape the blame for this, I guess I am shocked also that he pretends he is shocked too." Paul, a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, commented.

Greenspan yesterday described the current financial crisis as a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami" and blamed flaws in the workings of the free-market system, something he said had left him in a "state of shocked disbelief".

"What I really resent about it is that he knows and understood at one time what capitalism was all about. He went and distorted it," Ron Paul urged.

"Now he says 'this is the death of capitalism and what we need now are really really good regulations on derivatives.' No, we need to remove the system that creates derivatives."

Paul asserted that the Federal Reserve chairman, whoever it may be, does not have the wisdom to regulate monetary policy because they are driven to excess and are part of an inherently flawed system.

"In a way they are intellectually arrogant because they believe that only they know what the market knows. Nobody knows what the proper rate of interest is, it's always too high or too low." Paul said