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
Profoundly beneficial forces driving the American economy to competitive excellence are also engendering a set of imbalances that, unless contained, threaten our continuing prosperity,
Competition is the necessary driving force toward delivering a superior product or service, ... We should not shy away from it.
My basic concern, ... is that, if we are forced to implement a very significant unilateral tariff, the dangers to the overall international financial system, in my judgment, are very large.
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 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,
the possibility that the forces from Asia might damp activity and prices by more than is desirable.
Skilled shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. [Visa quotas] have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process we have created [a] privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at non-competitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of the income inequality.
through education and training, not by restraining the competitive forces that are so essential to overall rising standards of living of the great majority of our population.
Through most of last year's slowdown, in contrast to the usual pattern, the household sector was a major stabilizing force, ... As a consequence, although household spending should continue to trend up, the potential for significant acceleration in activity in this sector is more limited.
Fear is a far more dominant force in human behaviour than euphoria - I would never have expected that or given it a moment's thought before, but it shows up in the data in so many ways.
Over the last few months, these forces have taken their toll on activity, and evidence has accumulated that the economy has hit a soft patch,
The Federal Reserve has responded to the balance of market forces by gradually raising the federal funds rate over the past year, ... Certainly, to have done otherwise -- to have held the federal funds rate at last year's level even as credit demands and market interest rates rose -- would have required an inappropriately inflationary expansion of liquidity.
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.