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
That greater tendency toward self-correction has made the cyclical stability of the economy less dependent on the actions of macroeconomic policy makers, whose responses often have come too late or have been misguided.
If no action is taken at all ... we're going to be confronted within a few years with a marked upward ratcheting of long-term interest rates, which is very debilitating to long-term economic growth,
We need ... to be aware that our front-loaded policy actions this year, coupled with the tax cuts under way, should be increasingly affecting economic activity as the year progresses,
If we allow terrorism to undermine our freedom of action, we could reverse at least part of the palpable gains achieved by postwar globalization. It is incumbent upon us not to allow that to happen.
Instead of trying to contain a putative bubble by drastic actions with largely unpredictable consequences, we chose, as we noted in our mid-1999 congressional testimony, to focus on policies to mitigate the fallout when it occurs and, hopefully, ease the transition to the next expansion.
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.
history cautions that investors' anticipations of the cumulative magnitude of policy actions and their timing under such circumstances are far from perfect.
We have obviously specified implicitly that we prefer to act within our scheduled meetings, ... But we have also shown over the years that when we perceive that actions are required between meetings we have never hesitated to move.
Inflationary pressures will be reasonably well contained, so long as productivity is moving at a reasonably good clip,
Indications that the extent of the application of existing technology is still far from complete, plus potential benefits derived from continuing synergies, support a distinct possibility that total productivity growth rates will remain high or even increase further,
Indeed, our goal, in responding to the complexity of current economic forces, is to extend the expansion by containing imbalances and avoiding the very recession that would complete a business cycle,
Indeed only such highly liquid portfolios would be consistent with (government-sponsored enterprises') mission of providing primary mortgage market liquidity during a crisis, particularly a financial crisis,
Indeed, only such highly liquid portfolios would be consistent with (government-sponsored enterprises') mission of providing primary mortgage market liquidity during a crisis, particularly a financial crisis,
in more vulnerable countries where (the principal bank's) guarantee is more likely to be called upon and (where) cost might deter some aberrant borrowing.