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 a very special mission. We are in charge of the nation's currency and the central bank, because of that, is involved in everyone's daily lives. We are the guardians of their purchasing power.
Although I doubt that the U.S. dollar will lose its status as the world's reserve currency any time soon, there are in my judgment lessons to be learned from the experience of (Britain's currency) as it faded as the world's dominant currency,
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.
Whether those adjustments are wrenching will depend ... on the degree of economic flexibility that we and our trading partners maintain, and I hope enhance, in the years ahead,
We're going to see some erosion in a number of macroeconomic variables
What they perceive as newly abundant liquidity can readily disappear,
when we are at neutral, we will know it.
Unless the situation is reversed, at some point these budget trends will cause serious economic disruptions,
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.
As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law.
I have long argued that paying down the national debt is beneficial for the economy: it keeps interest rates lower than they otherwise would be and frees savings to finance increases in the capital stock, thereby boosting productivity and real incomes.
I came to a stark realization: chronic surpluses could be almost as destabilizing as chronic deficits.
The gut-feel of the 55-year old trader is more important than the mathematical elegance of the 25-year old genius.
Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.