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Excessive optimism sows the seeds of its own reversal.

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
Sows
Reversal
Excessive
Optimism
Seeds

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Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world. Fiat money in extremis is accepted by nobody. Gold is always accepted.
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All taxes are a drag on economic growth. It's only a question of degree.
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Cash is available and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this.
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In general, corruption tends to exist whenever governments have favors to extend, or something to sell.
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To succeed, you will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics of education - literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills.
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Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.
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Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.
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As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law.
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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.
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If I've made myself clear, I've misspoken.
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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.
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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?
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Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.
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Now, I only play very occasionally, and in fact, more piano than clarinet or sax.
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American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.
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You can't have the capitalist system if an increasing number of people think it is unjust.
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I'm not denying that monopolies are terrible things, but I am denying that it is readily easy to resolve them through legislation of that nature.
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Indeed, better risk management may be the only truly necessary element of success in banking.
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Rules cannot take the place of character.
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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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