Alan Greenspan quotes - page 2

We are obviously all hurt by inflation. Everybody is hurt by inflation. If you really wanted to examine who percentage-wise is hurt the most in their incomes, it is the Wall Street brokers. I mean their incomes have gone down the most. (Alan Greenspan)
We generally did not talk about the stock market very much at the Fed. View quote
Alan Greenspan
[There are] signs of froth in some local markets where home prices seem to have risen to unsustainable levels. View quote
Alan Greenspan
Once stock prices reach the point at which it is hard to value them by logical methodology, stocks will be bought as they were in the late 1920s not for investment but to be unloaded at a still higher price. The ensuing break could be disastrous because panic psychology cannot be summarily altered or reversed by easing money policies. View quote
Alan Greenspan
Globalization was exerting a dis-inflationary impact. View quote
Alan Greenspan
The reason there is very little support for the gold standard is the consequences of those types of market adjustments are not considered to be appropriate in the 20th and 21st century. I am one of the rare people who have still some nostalgic view about the old gold standard, as you know, but I must tell you, I am in a very small minority among my colleagues on that issue. View quote
Alan Greenspan
I was aware that the loosening of mortgage credit terms for subprime borrowers increased financial risk. But I believed then, as now, that the benefits of broadened home ownership are worth the risk. View quote
Alan Greenspan
Modern dynamic economies do not stay still long enough to allow for an accurate reading of their underlying structures. View quote
Alan Greenspan
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense-perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire-that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. View quote
Alan Greenspan
We had a bubble in housing. View quote
Alan Greenspan
The world of antitrust is reminiscent of Alice's Wonderland: everything seemingly is, yet apparently isn't, simultaneously. It is a world in which competition is lauded as the basic axiom and guiding principle, yet "too much" competition is condemned as "cutthroat." It is a world in which actions designed to limit competition are branded as criminal when taken by businessmen, yet praised as "enlightened" when initiated by the government. It is a world in which the law is so vague that businessmen have no way of knowing whether specific actions will be declared illegal until they hear the judge's verdict-after the fact. (Alan Greenspan)
It hardly makes any difference who will be the next president. The world is governed by market forces. View quote
Alan Greenspan
Rising interest rates have been advertised for so long and in so many places that anyone who has not appropriately hedged this position by now obviously is desirous of losing money. View quote
Alan Greenspan
An area in which more rather than less government involvement is needed, in my judgment, is the rooting out of fraud. It is the bane of any market system. View quote
Alan Greenspan
We are going through a period with no precedent in American history. View quote
Alan Greenspan
The resolution of our current account deficit and household debt burdens does not strike me as overly worrisome, but that is certainly not the case for our fiscal deficit, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will rise significantly as the baby boomers start to retire in 2008. Our fiscal prospects are, in my judgment, a significant obstacle to long-term stability because the budget deficit is not readily subject to correction by market forces that stabilize other imbalances. View quote
Alan Greenspan
I really didn't get it until very late in 2005 and 2006. View quote
Alan Greenspan
Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don't, frankly, matter. And I've had very good relationships with presidents. View quote
Alan Greenspan
I think Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while. View quote
Alan Greenspan
Treasury Secretary Brady didn't like the Fed either. He and the president were friends and had a lot in common-both were wealthy, Yale educated patricians and members of Skull and Bones. View quote
Alan Greenspan
Of course, shedding the debt burden would be a happy development for our country, but it would nevertheless pose a big dilemma for the Fed. Our primary lever of monetary policy was buying and selling treasury securities-Uncle Sam's IOU's. But as the debt was paid down, those securities would grow scarce, leaving the Fed in need of a new set of assets to effect monetary policy. (Alan Greenspan)
From the development of the textile loom two centuries ago to today's Internet, output per hour has increased fifty fold. View quote
Alan Greenspan
I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. View quote
Alan Greenspan
I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. View quote
Alan Greenspan
The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default. View quote
Alan Greenspan