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I have long argued that paying down the national debt is beneficial for the economy: it keeps interest rates lower than they otherwise would be and frees savings to finance increases in the capital stock, thereby boosting productivity and real incomes.

Alan Greenspan

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Alan Greenspan
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: March 6
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More quotes by Alan Greenspan

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We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power.
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.
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As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law.
Alan Greenspan
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The process of innovation is, of course, never ending.
Alan Greenspan
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I do not deny that many appear to have succeeded in a material way by cutting corners and by manipulating associates, both in their professional and in their personal lives. But material success is possible in this world and far more satisfying when it comes without exploiting others.
Alan Greenspan
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I'm a better economist than I was a sax player.
Alan Greenspan
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Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.
Alan Greenspan
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Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern.
Alan Greenspan
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Anyone willing to do what is required to become president of the United States is thereby barred from taking that office. I'm only half joking
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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.
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I love to play tennis and golf, listen to music, watch baseball and root for the Redskins.
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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I love facts and figures. It's like following a detective story, piecing together what's going on in the economy.
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We may be in a rapidly evolving international financial system with all the bells and whistles of the so-called new economy. But the old-economy rules of prudence are as formidable as ever. We violate them at our own peril.
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
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Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria. Bubbles go up very slowly as euphoria builds. Then fear hits, and it comes down very sharply. When I started to look at that, I was sort of intellectually shocked. Contagion is the critical phenomenon which causes the thing to fall apart.
Alan Greenspan
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If you think you understand what I am saying you do not understand what I am saying.
Alan Greenspan
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The use of a growing array of derivatives and the related application of more-sophisticated approaches to measuring and managing risk are key factors underpinning the greater resilience of our largest financial institutions... Derivatives have permitted the unbundling of financial risks.
Alan Greenspan
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Productivity is notoriously difficult to predict.
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