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
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.
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,
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 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.
history cautions that investors' anticipations of the cumulative magnitude of policy actions and their timing under such circumstances are far from perfect.
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,
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.
We have to do it in a cautious, gradual way. ... (We) should go slowly and test the waters.
The probability of an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation over the next few quarters, though minor, exceeds that of a pickup in inflation.
The scale and scope of higher education in America was being shaped by the recognition that research -- the creation of knowledge --complemented teaching and training -- the diffusion of knowledge,
These changes, assisted by improved prices in asset markets, have left households and businesses better positioned than they were earlier to boost outlays as their wariness about the economic environment abates,
these borrowers, and the institutions that service them, could be exposed to significant losses.
The shock of September 11, by markedly raising the degree of uncertainty about the future, has the potential to result, for a time, in pronounced disengagement from future commitments,