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Greenspan had come to the same conclusion.

the increasing hostility of Republicans to the Fed and to me personally troubled me,

Once again, the president expressed his full support for us.

It soon became clear that, without outside help, Greece would default.

years. That would give people a pretty good idea of where we were trying to steer the economy,

it accounted for only a tiny share of eurozone trade and investment.

commentary focused on the unfairness of bailing out Wall Street (a sentiment with which I agreed) rather than on what would have happened had we not acted.

In March 2003 I began a series of speeches on the topic.

In Hank's proposal, this broad role would fall to the Fed,

If defaults spread beyond Greece, the stability of Europe's entire banking system could be at risk.

The principles in his speech seemed sensible and pragmatic to me.

When not consulting or traveling to speak at meetings and conferences, I work on various projects at the Brookings Institution

I also believe that critics overstate the contribution of moral hazard from the Bear intervention to the resurgence of the crisis in the fall.

also worried about possible spillover effects,

I took slight comfort from the fact that he hadn't said we had gone over the edge of our lawful power.

But before Congress had an opportunity to give serious consideration to these issues, Lehman had failed,

Mankiw himself had ignited a short-lived media controversy by speaking favorably about outsourcing jobs to other countries

At the polite but firm request of the security team, I had not driven a car in seven months.

I thought of myself as a moderate Republican—liberal on social issues,

we knew it wasn't going to happen unless Greenspan changed his views.

Fortunately, permanent staff members provided continuity.

we offered guidance, albeit vague, on our own expectations for monetary policy. We

We discussed risks that European developments might pose to the United States, but to date those risks had not materialized.

White House officials had made no firm commitment but said I would receive strong consideration if I wanted a new term.