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All taxes are a drag on economic growth. It's only a question of degree.

Alan Greenspan

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Alan Greenspan
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: March 6
Banker
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New York City
New York
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More quotes by Alan Greenspan

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The economy is turning, and credit comes in with a lag, .. To the extent that a number of small firms are finding it difficult to get the credit they need at a price they can afford, that's likely to change for the better.
Alan Greenspan
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We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures. Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity are in a state of shocked disbelief.
Alan Greenspan
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People dont realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but thats as far as we go. And Ive had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.
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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In an economy that already has lost some momentum, one must remain alert to the possibility that greater caution and weakening asset values in financial markets could signal or precipitate an excessive softening in household and business spending.
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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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?
Alan Greenspan
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History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities.
Alan Greenspan
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These days, even out of office, I still read economic reports.
Alan Greenspan
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Any onset of increased investor caution elevates risk premiums and, as a consequence, lowers asset values and promotes the liquidation of the debt that supported higher asset prices, ... This is the reason that history has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.
Alan Greenspan
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We need, in effect, to make the phantom 'lock-boxes' around the trust fund real.
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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The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War.
Alan Greenspan
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The Iraq War is largely about oil.
Alan Greenspan
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If I say something which you understand fully in this regard, I probably made a mistake.
Alan Greenspan
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No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk.
Alan Greenspan
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Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.
Alan Greenspan
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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.
Alan Greenspan
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Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.
Alan Greenspan
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It has been my experience that competency in mathematics, both in numerical manipulations and in understanding its conceptual foundations, enhances a person's ability to handle the more ambiguous and qualitative relationships that dominate our day-to-day financial decision-making
Alan Greenspan