Alan Greenspan (b. March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. He currently works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. First appointed Federal Reserve chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006, after the second-longest tenure in the position (behind William McChesney Martin). (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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Any informed borrower is simply less vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
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.
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.
Finance is wholly different from the rest the economy.
I am one of the culprits who created the problem. I used to write those programs back in the '60s and '70s, and was so proud of the fact that I was able to squeeze a few elements of space by not having to put '19' before the year.
I don't know where the stock market is going, but I will say this, that if it continues higher, this will do more to stimulate the economy than anything we've been talking about today or anything anybody else was talking about.
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.
If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.
Markets do very weird things because it reacts to how people behave, and sometimes people are a little screwy.
Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.
The Republicans in Congress lost their way. They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.
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.
The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.
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.
Unless you are willing to compromise, society cannot live together.
We really can't forecast all that well, and yet we pretend that we can, but we really can't.
We're a democratic society. Shutting down the government should not be on the agenda.
Whatever you tax, you get less of.
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(March 6 is also the birthday of Ring Lardner, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, and Michelangelo.)
Categories: Alan Greenspan, Quotes of the day
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