Alan Greenspan quotes

" How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values " # Self-interest # Time and Time Management # Thoughts and Thinking

" American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage. " # Comfort # America # Choice

" But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade? " # Alcohol and Alcoholism # Time and Time Management # Past

" 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. " # Drugs # Money # Goals

" 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. " # Freedom # Statistics # Truth

" 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. " # Politics # Debt # Obstacles

" Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices. It is this superlatively moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats, and the chronic goad of fear. " # Advertising # Statistics # Capitalism

" I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I said. " # Leaders and Leadership # Age and Aging # Love

" Since becoming a central banker, I have learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said. " # Christians and Christianity # Bankers and Banking # Leaders and Leadership

" 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. " # Home # Minorities # Writers and Writing