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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
Excessive
Optimism
Seeds
Sows
Reversal

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When trust is lost, a nation's ability to transact business is palpably undermined.
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The guiding purpose of the government regulator is to prevent rather than to create something.
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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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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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An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold and economic freedom are inseparable.
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I'm a plain soap kind of guy.
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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.
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If we are to remain preeminent in transforming knowledge into economic value, America's system of higher education must remain the world's leader in generating scientific and technological breakthrough, and in meeting the challenge to educate workers.
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Anything that we can do to raise personal savings is very much in the interest of this country.
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I don't know where the stock market is going, but I will say this, that if it continues higher, this will do more to stimulate the economy than anything we've been talking about today or anything anybody else was talking about.
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Since I've become a central banker, I've learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.
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The number one problem in today's generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy.
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I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.
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Significantly opening up immigration to skilled workers solves two problems. The companies could hire the educated workers they need. And those workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality.
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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
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