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...our market system depends critically on trust-trust in the word of our colleagues and trust in the word of those with whom we do business.

Alan Greenspan

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Alan Greenspan
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: March 6
Banker
Economist
Entrepreneur
Jazz Musician
Politician
New York City
New York
Critically
Colleagues
Market
Depends
Trust
System
Word
Business

More quotes by Alan Greenspan

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I love facts and figures. It's like following a detective story, piecing together what's going on in the economy.
Alan Greenspan
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I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University.
Alan Greenspan
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Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.
Alan Greenspan
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Although the outlook is clouded by a number of uncertainties, the central tendencies of the projections .. imply continued good economic performance in the United States.
Alan Greenspan
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I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I'm not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it's got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive.
Alan Greenspan
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I cannot conceive of a politically feasible solution to this problem which will overdo cutting the deficit, where overdoing means harming the economy. It might be technically possible, but it is not realistic.
Alan Greenspan
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The only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy.
Alan Greenspan
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These days, even out of office, I still read economic reports.
Alan Greenspan
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Rules cannot take the place of character.
Alan Greenspan
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I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.
Alan Greenspan
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Regulation - which is based on force and fear - undermines the moral base of business dealings. It becomes cheaper to bribe a building inspector than to meet his standards of construction. Protection of the consumer by regulation is thus illusory.
Alan Greenspan
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American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.
Alan Greenspan
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Cash is available and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this.
Alan Greenspan
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Excessive optimism sows the seeds of its own reversal.
Alan Greenspan
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Indeed, better risk management may be the only truly necessary element of success in banking.
Alan Greenspan
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If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries.
Alan Greenspan
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Anything that we can do to raise personal savings is very much in the interest of this country.
Alan Greenspan
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History demonstrates that participants in financial markets are susceptible to waves of optimism. Excessive optimism shows the seeds of its own reversal in the form of imbalances that tend to grow over time.
Alan Greenspan
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I must say, I never expected to see the day where I would be talking about anything other than reducing the debt, I'm running into the tyranny of zero, which is where you can't reduce (the debt) any more
Alan Greenspan
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If all currencies are moving up or down together, the question is: relative to what? Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it.
Alan Greenspan