Quote

You can't have the capitalist system if an increasing number of people think it is unjust.

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
Capitalist
Number
Numbers
System
Think
Thinking
People
Increasing
Unjust

More quotes by 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
[Republicans] swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.
Alan Greenspan
Image
I came to a stark realization: chronic surpluses could be almost as destabilizing as chronic deficits.
Alan Greenspan
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There is no evidence that the business cycle has been repealed.
Alan Greenspan
Image
By far the most significant event in finance during the past decade has been the extraordinary development and expansion of financial derivatives.
Alan Greenspan
Image
I've always argued that this country has benefited immensely from the fact that we draw people from all over the world.
Alan Greenspan
Image
But rules cannot substitute for character.
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
Improvements in lending practices driven by information technology have enabled lenders to reach out to households with previously unrecognized borrowing capacities.
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
We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power.
Alan Greenspan
Image
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
Image
It's hard to overemphasize how important Ford's deregulation was. True, most of the benefits took years to unfold-rail freight rates, for example hardly budged at first. Yet deregulation set the stage for an enormous wave of creative destruction in the 1980s.
Alan Greenspan
Image
The only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy.
Alan Greenspan
Image
Rules cannot take the place of character.
Alan Greenspan
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I must say, I never expected to see the day where I would be talking about anything other than reducing the debt, I'm running into the tyranny of zero, which is where you can't reduce (the debt) any more
Alan Greenspan