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In general, corruption tends to exist whenever governments have favors to extend, or something to sell.

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
Whenever
General
Extend
Exist
Tends
Government
Governments
Something
Corruption
Favors
Sell
Sells

More quotes by Alan Greenspan

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Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary.
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I'm always amazed that my wife can handle different subjects - one day politics, the next day foreign policy. And she always has so much fun doing it. We make a good team.
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I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.
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Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern.
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Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs.
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Institutions of the newer participants in global finance had not been tested, until recently...recent crisis have underscored certain financial structure vulnerabilities that are not readily assuaged in the short run.
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It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade. The worst have failed investors no longer fund them and are not likely to in the future.
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These days, even out of office, I still read economic reports.
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Now, I only play very occasionally, and in fact, more piano than clarinet or sax.
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Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes.
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The need for values is inbred. Their content is not.
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Developing protectionism regarding trade and our reluctance to place fiscal policy on a more sustainable path are threatening what may well be our most valued policy asset: the increased flexibility of our economy, which has fostered our extraordinary resilience to shocks.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.
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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.
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The guiding purpose of the government regulator is to prevent rather than to create something.
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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.
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The process of innovation is, of course, never ending.
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