Alan Greenspan Quotes

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 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.

History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.

The James Hills and J.P. Morgans are an affront to a society dedicated to the worship of mediocrity.

Globalization was exerting a dis-inflationary impact.

I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I said.

The need for values is inbred. Their content is not.

It's hard to overemphasize how important Ford's deregulation was. True, most of the benefits took years to unfold-rail freight rates, for example hardly budged at first. Yet deregulation set the stage for an enormous wave of creative destruction in the 1980s:...

There are errors in this book. I do not know where they are. If I did they wouldn't be there. But with close to two hundred thousand words my probabilistic mind tells me some are wrong.

government regulation cannot substitute for individual integrity.

American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.

Winston Churchill once said to his fellow countrymen, “We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.” Today, thanks to a malign combination of litigation, regulation, and pedagogical fashion, sugar-candy people are everywhere.

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

I know you think you understand what you thought I said , but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard isn't what I meant

It did not go without notice that Ayn Rand stood beside me as I took the oath of office in the presence of President Ford in the Oval Office. Ayn Rand and I remained close until she died in 1982, and I'm grateful for the influence she had on my life. I was intellectually limited until I met her.

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.