Greenspan Alan Quotes & Sayings

The gut-feel of the 55-year old trader is more important than the mathematical elegance of the 25-year old genius. — Alan Greenspan

There are no easy choices. Easy choices are long gone. — Alan Greenspan

How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values? — Alan Greenspan

We're a democratic society. Shutting down the government should not be on the agenda. — Alan Greenspan

Since 1948 I have spent every single day thinking how the economic and political worlds have changed. — Alan Greenspan

Senator, we are groping for understanding, the knowledge you assume I possess doesn't exist' - 'The only effective regulation lies in the propensity of customers to choose alternatives, of investors to move their funds elsewhere and of labour to acquire technical skills' - 'Senator, if I seem clear to you, you must have misunderstood me' - 'Unfortunately, Senator, nobody knows where the next innovative idea is coming from. Political decisions are never random and will always lose out to innovative alternatives — Alan Greenspan

While local economies may experience significant price imbalances, a national severe price distortion seems most unlikely in the United States, given its size and diversity. — Alan Greenspan

sold to the public on false pretenses, high officials confessing to ordering torture in violation of treaty and domestic law, and an economic meltdown even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledges involved massive fraud - and no one has been prosecuted, no one has gone to prison, and Americans continue to dutifully cast their votes for the Democratic/Republican duopoly responsible for these disasters. — Barry Eisler

The only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy. — Alan Greenspan

But the trouble is that he [Alan Greenspan] had been an Ayn Rander. You can take the boy out of the cult but you can't take the cult out of the boy. — Paul Samuelson

The probability of ten consecutive heads is 0.1 percent; thus, when you have millions of coin tossers, or investors, in the end there will be thousands of very successful practitioners of coin tossing, or stock picking. — Alan Greenspan

Imagine a senator running for president whose positions included halving the military budget, socializing the medical system, re-regulating the communications and electrical industries, establishing a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans, and equalizing funding for all schools regardless of property valuations - and who promised to fire Alan Greenspan, counseled withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, and, for good measure, spoke warmly of adolescent sexual experimentation. That was Barry Goldwater, conservative. — Rick Perlstein

I believe that the general growth in large [financial] institutions have occurred in the context of an underlying structure of markets in which many of the larger risks are dramatically
I should say, fully
hedged. — Alan Greenspan

At the outset of the creation of the euro in 1999, it was expected that the southern eurozone economies would behave like those in the north; the Italians would behave like Germans. They didn't. Instead, northern Europe fell into subsidizing southern Europe's excess consumption, that is, its current account deficits. — Alan Greenspan

No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk. — Alan Greenspan

If somebody had said to me in June or July of 1987, 'We'd like you to become chairman of the Federal Reserve, but you're never allowed to discuss any economics after you leave,' I'd have said, 'Forget it.' What do they want me to do? Become an anthropologist?' — Alan Greenspan

Finance is wholly different from the rest the economy. — Alan Greenspan

In general, corruption tends to exist whenever governments have favors to extend, or something to sell. — Alan Greenspan

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. — Alan Greenspan

Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff. — Alan Greenspan

I've always argued that this country has benefited immensely from the fact that we draw people from all over the world. — Alan Greenspan

When trust is lost, a nation's ability to transact business is palpably undermined. — Alan Greenspan

History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities. — Alan Greenspan

Europe is very critical to the United States in the sense not only do we have a fourth of our exports there, but more importantly, a significant proportion of the foreign affiliate profits in fact, half of U.S. corporations, are in Europe. — Alan Greenspan

Increased jobs are the consequence of increased trade. Increasing jobs more than output implies a fall in productivity and standards of living. That surely cannot be our goal. — Alan Greenspan

Given our inevitably incomplete knowledge about key structural aspects of an everchanging economy and the sometimes asymmetric costs or benefits of particular outcomes, a central bank needs to consider not only the most likely future path for the economy but also the distribution of possible outcomes about that path. The decision makers then need to reach judgment about the probabilities, costs and benefits of the various possible outcomes under alternative choices for policy. — Alan Greenspan

Cash is available and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this. — Alan Greenspan

The person I liked the best was Gerald R. Ford. He was the most decent man in politics I ever had any relationships with. — Alan Greenspan

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. — Alan Greenspan

I think the whole issue of a debt ceiling makes no sense to me whatsoever. Anybody who is remotely adroit at arithmetic doesn't need a debt ceiling to tell you where you are. — Alan Greenspan

The purpose of a politician is to be a leader. A politician has to lead. Otherwise he's just a follower. — Alan Greenspan

I always believed in animal spirits. It's not their existence that is new. It's the fact that they are not random events, but actually replicate in-bred qualities of human nature which create those animal spirits. — Alan Greenspan

It is very difficult to predict when a bond crisis could happen. — Alan Greenspan

Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade? — Alan Greenspan

But rules cannot substitute for character. — Alan Greenspan

Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary. — Alan Greenspan

The more flexible an economy, the greater its ability to self-correct in response to inevitable, often unanticipated, disturbances and thus to contain the size and consequences of cyclical imbalances. — Alan Greenspan

[Ben Carson] critics say that your inexperience shows. You've suggested that the Baltic States are not a part of NATO, you were unfamiliar with the major political parties and government in Israel, and domestically, you thought Alan Greenspan had been treasury secretary instead of federal reserve chair. — Megyn Kelly

If prices go down, we will have problems - problems in the sense of spillover to other areas, Greenspan said. While he hasn't seen such spreading yet, I expect to. — Alan Greenspan

Excessive optimism sows the seeds of its own reversal. — Alan Greenspan

The culture of Greece is not the same as the culture of Germany, and to fuse them into a single unit is extremely difficult. — Alan Greenspan

It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade. The worst have failed; investors no longer fund them and are not likely to in the future. — Alan Greenspan

If we are to remain preeminent in transforming knowledge into economic value, America's system of higher education must remain the world's leader in generating scientific and technological breakthrough, and in meeting the challenge to educate workers. — Alan Greenspan

There is no evidence that the business cycle has been repealed. — Alan Greenspan

Every economy exists, no matter what the level of democracy, has elements of crony capitalism. It's - given human nature and given the democratic structures, which we all, I assume, adhere to, that is an inevitable consequence. — Alan Greenspan

One of the problems with hedge funds is that they are changing so rapidly. If you have the balance sheet that closed business last night, by 11 A.M. this morning, that won't tell you very much about what they're doing. — Alan Greenspan

The process of innovation is, of course, never ending. — Alan Greenspan

Markets do very weird things because it reacts to how people behave, and sometimes people are a little screwy. — Alan Greenspan

She pokes at a very wrinkled baked potato that somehow reminds me of Alan Greenspan. — Nic Tatano

The dirty little secret is that both houses of Congress are irrelevant ... America's domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, and America's foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund [IMF] ... when the president decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress. — Robert Reich

When you go back and look at American history, it's not terribly different from Canadian history. If you weren't self-reliant on the prairie, you wouldn't survive. — Alan Greenspan

Unlike old-fashioned Britain, where Tony Blair recruited Lord Levy to encourage his 'Friends of Israel' to donate their money to a party that was just about to launch a criminal war, in America Alan Greenspan provided his president with an astonishing economic boom. It seems that the prosperous conditions at home divert the attention from the disastrous war in Iraq.
Greenspan is not an amateur economist, he knew what he was doing. He knew very well that as long as Americans were doing well, buying and selling homes, his President would be able to continue implementing the 'Wolfowitz doctrine' and PNAC philosophy, destroying the 'bad Arabs' in the name of 'democracy', 'liberalism', 'ethics', and even 'women's rights'. — Gilad Atzmon

Rules cannot take the place of character. — Alan Greenspan

To succeed, you will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics of education - literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills. — Alan Greenspan

I get so engaged when I have a problem you cannot solve that I just cannot break away from what I am doing - I keep thinking and thinking and cannot stop. — Alan Greenspan

I wasn't able to do much reading when I was chairman of the Reserve Board. The workload was too large, and the luxury of reading was not available to me. So I caught up a good deal when I left office. — Alan Greenspan

The free lunch has still to be invented. — Alan Greenspan

The very nature of finance is that it cannot be profitable unless it is significantly leveraged ... and as long as there is debt, there can be failure and contagion. — Alan Greenspan

I have one other issue I'd like to throw on the table. I hesitate to do it, but let me tell you some of the issues that are involved here. If we are dealing with psychology, then the thermometers one uses to measure it have an effect. I was raising the question on the side with Governor Mullins of what would happen if the Treasury sold a little gold in this market. There's an interesting question here because if the gold price broke in that context, the thermometer would not be just a measuring tool. It would basically affect the underlying psychology. — Alan Greenspan

And whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the word economy ... I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil. — Alan Greenspan

Any informed borrower is simply less vulnerable to fraud and abuse. — Alan Greenspan

The arts develop skills and habits of mind that are important for workers in the new economy of ideas. — Alan Greenspan

If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries. — Alan Greenspan

We ought to be opening up our borders to skilled labour from all parts of the world because [the state of the world is as follows: ] if we were to do that we would increase the supply of skilled workers that our schools have been unable to create and as a consequence of that we would lower the average wage of skills and reduce the degree of income inequality in this country. — Alan Greenspan

Greenspan, who knew so much more than most, knew far less than most supposed ... — Alan Greenspan

Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern. — Alan Greenspan

I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University. — Alan Greenspan

We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Michael Lewis

I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I'm not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it's got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive. — Alan Greenspan

The economy is turning, and credit comes in with a lag, .. To the extent that a number of small firms are finding it difficult to get the credit they need at a price they can afford, that's likely to change for the better. — Alan Greenspan

Diplomacy is really far less important than the stock movements within Russia. — Alan Greenspan

Unless you are willing to compromise, society cannot live together. — Alan Greenspan

Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world. Fiat money in extremis is accepted by nobody. Gold is always accepted. — Alan Greenspan

The central focus of what we are doing at the Fed is to keep inflation from accelerating - and preferably decelerating. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

The only way to have several currencies from divergent nations lumped together is if they are culturally close, such as Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. If they aren't, it simply can't continue to work. — Alan Greenspan

There is nothing to guarantee the superior judgment, knowledge, and integrity of an inspector or a bureaucrat-and the deadly consequences of entrusting him with arbitrary power are obvious. — Alan Greenspan

The only thing that was economic, I might say, about my music career, aside from the fact that I did everybody's tax returns in the band, was the decision I made to leave the music business on economic grounds. — Alan Greenspan

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake. — Alan Greenspan

Remember what we're looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency, that no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match. — Alan Greenspan

I do not understand where the backing of Bitcoin is coming from. There is no fundamental issue of capabilities of repaying it in anything which is universally acceptable, which is either intrinsic value of the currency or the credit or trust of the individual who is issuing the money, whether it's a government or an individual. — Alan Greenspan

The use of a growing array of derivatives and the related application of more-sophisticated approaches to measuring and managing risk are key factors underpinning the greater resilience of our largest financial institutions ... Derivatives have permitted the unbundling of financial risks. — Alan Greenspan

I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. — Alan Greenspan

Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs. — Alan Greenspan

There are winners and there are losers. And as much as we would like to help the losers, if we do it in the way that directs the limited capital of the society to support the low-productivity parts of the economy, it means that the rest of the economy - our overall standard of living - will not rise as much as it could. — Alan Greenspan

Gold, unlike all other commodities, is a currency ... and the major thrust in the demand for gold is not for jewelry. It's not for anything other than an escape from what is perceived to be a fiat money system, paper money, that seems to be deteriorating. — Alan Greenspan

I came to a stark realization: chronic surpluses could be almost as destabilizing as chronic deficits. — Alan Greenspan

The job of the Federal Reserve is "to know when to remove the punch bowl at the party." Under Alan Greenspan's leadership its motto became "let's all get drunk and see what happens." It is now the morning after and the world will be dealing with Greenspan's hangover for the next several decades. — Said Elias Dawlabani

We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs and price stability. — Alan Greenspan

Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money. — Alan Greenspan

I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant — Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan is unskilled; you don't take the unskilled seriously. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

[On reporters trying to cajole a smile from her husband, Alan Greenspan:] For a Federal Reserve chairman, that was a smile. — Andrea Mitchell

The Iraq War is largely about oil. — Alan Greenspan

By far the most significant event in finance during the past decade has been the extraordinary development and expansion of financial derivatives. — Alan Greenspan

I was sort of shocked when it all of a sudden turned out that I got all A's through college, with the exception of two B's in the first term. I never envisaged myself as summa cum laude. — Alan Greenspan

Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth ... The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit ... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation — Alan Greenspan

Improvements in lending practices driven by information technology have enabled lenders to reach out to households with previously unrecognized borrowing capacities. — Alan Greenspan

What I see in the corporate sector is very clearly an issue of a major shortfall in the issue of, what some people call confidence, but whatever you want to call it. Clearly people are looking out in the very distant future and they are saying that it is too complex. — Alan Greenspan