Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspanis 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth6 March 1926
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
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?
How can we ignore the fact that virtually all forecasts of the budget balance have been wide of the mark in recent years?
Human beings make mistakes, ... I know of no supervisory action we can take that will prevent that. I know of no legislation to help us prevent them from making dumb mistakes.
There have been signs recently that some of the forces that have been restraining the economy over the past year are starting to diminish and that activity is beginning to firm,
We think that coming up on a regular scheduled basis ... has been very productive, ... It requires us ... to have a structure of policy that is coherent to the Congress.
We've come a long way through this adjustment process and we're still standing and that's good news, ... is still not doing well but (is) far better given what has happened than I would have forecast six, eight, nine months ago.
Firms still appear hesitant to spend and hire, and we need to remain mindful of the possibility that lingering business caution could be an impediment to improved economic performance,
Financial markets, along with households and businesses, seem to be reasonably well prepared to cope with a transition to a more neutral stance of monetary policy, ... Although many factors may affect inflation in the short-run, inflation in the long-run, it is important to remind ourselves, is a monetary phenomenon.
The good news is that evidence is becoming more persuasive that our electronic infrastructure will be ready for the Century Date Change, ... The public's understanding of the degree of our Y2K readiness also has grown, and fears of widespread disruptions around the CDC appear to be waning, though we are not as yet home free.
We owe it to those who will retire over the next couple of decades to promise only what the government can deliver,
We ought to be more concerned with the emergence of inflation than with temporary economic weakness.
We don't look at stock prices and say, 'If they are rising we have to raise interest rates,' ... To the extent that the stock market affects the economy, we will respond to that.
We are seeing the first signs of erosion at the edges, especially in manufacturing. That's a signal that the effects of East Asia and Russia on our financial system are increasingly a factor.
We at the Federal Reserve, recognizing the powerful forces of productivity growth and global restraint on inflation, have not perceived to date the need to tighten policy,