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There is nothing to guarantee the superior judgment, knowledge, and integrity of an inspector or a bureaucrat-and the deadly consequences of entrusting him with arbitrary power are obvious.

Alan Greenspan

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

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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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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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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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Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.
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
Alan Greenspan
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It is decidedly not true that nice guys finish last, as that highly original American baseball philosopher, Leo Durocher, was alleged to have said.
Alan Greenspan
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Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.
Alan Greenspan
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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
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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.
Alan Greenspan
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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.
Alan Greenspan
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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
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But rules cannot substitute for character.
Alan Greenspan
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There is no evidence that the business cycle has been repealed.
Alan Greenspan
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The gut-feel of the 55-year old trader is more important than the mathematical elegance of the 25-year old genius.
Alan Greenspan
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How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?
Alan Greenspan
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Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs.
Alan Greenspan
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Rules cannot take the place of character.
Alan Greenspan
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Productivity is notoriously difficult to predict.
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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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