Quotes About Greenspan

Every time I get accustomed to low volatility, like we were towards the end of the Greenspan era, and we think we have all the levers under the control... something erupts to remind us that the idea that anybody is in control of everything is hubris.

The key architects of the nation's economic policy in the Clinton era (Greenspan, Rubin, and Summers) allowed the build-up of forces that would eventually blow the housing and banking industries sky-high. These forces were then multiplied by the reckless fiscal policy of the Bush Administration that enlarged the size of the national debt and set the stage for an economic train wreck.

During the Greenspan-Bernanke era, the Fed has embraced the view that stability in the economy and stability in prices are mutually consistent. As long as inflation remains at or below its target level, the Fed's modus operandi is to panic at the sight of real or perceived economic trouble and provide emergency relief.

Greenspan tells us what to do. Someone should take him out and hang him.

I'm not denying that monopolies are terrible things, but I am denying that it is readily easy to resolve them through legislation of that nature.

Indeed, Greenspan deemed it "fortunate" that "policy decisions in the U.S. have been largely replaced by global market forces," so much so that "national security aside, it hardly makes any difference" whom Americans installed in the White House.9

I said that best practices in monetary policy had evolved during the Greenspan years and would continue to evolve. But

also said that my first priority would be to maintain continuity with Greenspan's policies.

Greenspan did not put a high priority on consumer protection.

had been an indispensable adviser to both Greenspan and me.

I doubted that my words would have the weight of Greenspan's, and in any case it seemed to me that Congress is ruled first and foremost by interests and ideology, not by the advice of experts or supposed experts, including the chairman of the Fed.

Greenspan was known for his economic forecasting skills, having run a successful consulting firm,

Greenspan had come to the same conclusion.

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

Alan Greenspan is the worst Chairman of the Fed in history.

Alan Greenspan is going to go down in history as one of the worst Federal Reserve chairmen ever.

Alan Greenspan assures us that home prices are not prone to bubbles—or major deflations—on any national scale," he'd said. "This is ridiculous, of course…. In 1933, during the fourth year of the Great Depression, the United States found itself in the midst of a housing crisis that put housing starts at 10% of the level of 1925. Roughly half of all mortgage debt was in default.

dilemma. 'The chief dilemma facing Mr Greenspan is whether or not to raise interest rates' (Sunday Times). Dilemma does not mean just any difficulty or predicament. Strictly speaking, it applies only when someone is faced with two courses of action, both unsatisfactory. Fowler accepted its extension to contexts involving more than two alternatives, but even then the number of alternatives should be definite and the consequences of each unappealing.

When the former Fed chairman was in, Alan Greenspan was in, there was a saying back in those days that you called the 'Greenspan put.' Any time the treasury secretary - for the Fed chairman - said something, the market saw that as good news, and it took off.

It's only when the markets are perceived to have exhausted themselves on the downside that they turn. Trying to prevent them from going down just merely prolongs the agony.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

Greenspan's actions were harmful, but even if he knew that, it would have taken a bit of heroic courage to justify inaction in a democracy where the incentive is to always promise a better outcome than the other guy, regardless of the actual, delayed cost.

Traders had begun to speak of the 'Greenspan put' because having him at the Fed was like having a 'put' option on the stock market (an option but not an obligation to sell stocks at a good price in the future).

For Greenspan, however, the problem isn't extreme inequality per se, or the newly extreme inequality between the great majority and the rich, but rather the envy of the poor for the middle class. And his proposed solution to that, honest to God, was to contrive to pay middle-class workers even less, to bring their incomes down closer to those of the poor.