Quote

Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.

Alan Greenspan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alan Greenspan
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: March 6
Banker
Economist
Entrepreneur
Jazz Musician
Politician
New York City
New York
Amateurs
Professionals
Money
Right
Make

More quotes by Alan Greenspan

Image
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
Image
This decade is strewn with examples of bright people who thought they built a better mousetrap that could consistently extract abnormal returns from the financial markets. Some succeed for a time. But while there may occasionally be mis-configurations among market prices that allow abnormal returns, they do not persist.
Alan Greenspan
Image
If we are to remain preeminent in transforming knowledge into economic value, America's system of higher education must remain the world's leader in generating scientific and technological breakthrough, and in meeting the challenge to educate workers.
Alan Greenspan
Image
History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities.
Alan Greenspan
Image
Remember what we're looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency, that no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match.
Alan Greenspan
Image
The arts develop skills and habits of mind that are important for workers in the new economy of ideas.
Alan Greenspan
Image
The recent evidence increasingly suggests that an economic expansion is already well under way, although an array of influences unique to this business cycle seems likely to moderate its speed.
Alan Greenspan
Image
I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.
Alan Greenspan
Image
But rules cannot substitute for character.
Alan Greenspan
Image
Productivity is notoriously difficult to predict.
Alan Greenspan
Image
Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.
Alan Greenspan
Image
Rules cannot take the place of character.
Alan Greenspan
Image
Gold, unlike all other commodities, is a currency...and the major thrust in the demand for gold is not for jewelry. It's not for anything other than an escape from what is perceived to be a fiat money system, paper money, that seems to be deteriorating.
Alan Greenspan
Image
Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern.
Alan Greenspan
Image
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
Image
We cannot rule out a situation in which a preemptive policy tightening becomes necessary, ... Such caution seems especially warranted with regard to the sharp rise in equity prices during the past two years. These gains have obviously raised questions of sustainability.
Alan Greenspan
Image
How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?
Alan Greenspan
Image
Even though some down payments are borrowed, it would take a large, and historically most unusual, fall in home prices to wipe out a significant part of home equity. Many of those who purchased their residence more than a year ago have equity buffers in their homes adequate to withstand any price decline other than a very deep one.
Alan Greenspan
Image
I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.
Alan Greenspan
Image
The tub helps me relax, and it's a great place to read.
Alan Greenspan