110+ Alan Greenspan Quotes On Inflation, Monetary Policymaker And Gold

Alan Greenspan is an American economist who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. He is widely credited with helping to create the economic boom of the 1990s and is known for his advocacy of free-market economic policies. He is also known for his support of the "Greenspan Put," a policy of lowering interest rates to prevent economic downturns. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Alan Greenspan on inflation, monetary policymaker, gold.

Top 10 Alan Greenspan Quotes

1. 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.
2. The number one problem in today's generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy.
3. I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.
4. Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs.
5. Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world. Fiat money in extremis is accepted by nobody. Gold is always accepted.
6. By far the most significant event in finance during the past decade has been the extraordinary development and expansion of financial derivatives.
7. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.
8. 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.
9. Any informed borrower is simply less vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
10. The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake.

Alan Greenspan Short Quotes

• How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?
• The Iraq War is largely about oil.
• The process of innovation is, of course, never ending.
• Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.
• The guiding purpose of the government regulator is to prevent rather than to create something.
• Credit-default swaps, I think, have serious problems associated with them.
• We need, in effect, to make the phantom 'lock-boxes' around the trust fund real.
• Anything that we can do to raise personal savings is very much in the interest of this country.
• All taxes are a drag on economic growth. It's only a question of degree.
• If I say something which you understand fully in this regard, I probably made a mistake.

Alan Greenspan Quotes About Gold

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. — Alan Greenspan

Gold, unlike all other commodities, is a currency...and the major thrust in the demand for gold is not for jewelry. It's not for anything other than an escape from what is perceived to be a fiat money system, paper money, that seems to be deteriorating. — Alan Greenspan

Remember what we're looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency, that no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match. — Alan Greenspan

Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise. — Alan Greenspan

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

Alan Greenspan Quotes About Finance

What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so. — Alan Greenspan

A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures, because the vast majority of homeowners have built up substantial equity in their homes despite large mortgage-market financed withdrawals of home equity in recent years. — Alan Greenspan

The very nature of finance is that it cannot be profitable unless it is significantly leveraged... and as long as there is debt, there can be failure and contagion. — Alan Greenspan

I have long argued that paying down the national debt is beneficial for the economy: it keeps interest rates lower than they otherwise would be and frees savings to finance increases in the capital stock, thereby boosting productivity and real incomes. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan Quotes About Risk

History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums. — Alan Greenspan

Indeed, better risk management may be the only truly necessary element of success in banking. — Alan Greenspan

At the risk of some oversimplification, if the skill composition of our work force meshed fully with the needs of our increasingly complex capital-stock, wage-skill differentials would be stable, and the percentage changes in wage rates would be the same for all job grades. — Alan Greenspan

No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

I believe that the general growth in large [financial] institutions have occurred in the context of an underlying structure of markets in which many of the larger risks are dramatically -- I should say, fully -- hedged. — Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Alan Greenspan

The probability of ten consecutive heads is 0.1 percent; thus, when you have millions of coin tossers, or investors, in the end there will be thousands of very successful practitioners of coin tossing, or stock picking. — Alan Greenspan

If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries. — Alan Greenspan

I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I'm not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it's got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures. Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity are in a state of shocked disbelief. — Alan Greenspan

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

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

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

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil. — Alan Greenspan

It's a bubble. It has to have intrinsic value. You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is. I haven't been able to do it. Maybe somebody else can. — Alan Greenspan

The arts develop skills and habits of mind that are important for workers in the new economy of ideas. — Alan Greenspan

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

Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary. — Alan Greenspan

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

Regulators have not been able to achieve the level of future clarity required to act pre-emptively. The problem is not lack of regulation but unrealistic expectations. What we confront in reality is uncertainty, some of it frighteningly so... — Alan Greenspan

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

I do not deny that many appear to have succeeded in a material way by cutting corners and by manipulating associates, both in their professional and in their personal lives. But material success is possible in this world and far more satisfying when it comes without exploiting others. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

The more flexible an economy, the greater its ability to self-correct in response to inevitable, often unanticipated, disturbances and thus to contain the size and consequences of cyclical imbalances. — Alan Greenspan

We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

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

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? — Alan Greenspan

The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default. — Alan Greenspan

I've always argued that this country has benefited immensely from the fact that we draw people from all over the world. — Alan Greenspan

I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University. — Alan Greenspan

Crony capitalism is essentially a condition in which... public officials are giving favours to people in the private sector in payment of political favours. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

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. — Alan Greenspan

What an ideology is is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to, to exist you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not. — Alan Greenspan

The need for values is inbred. Their content is not. — Alan Greenspan

Greenspan, who knew so much more than most, knew far less than most supposed. — Alan Greenspan

We ought to be opening up our borders to skilled labour from all parts of the world because [the state of the world is as follows: ] if we were to do that we would increase the supply of skilled workers that our schools have been unable to create and as a consequence of that we would lower the average wage of skills and reduce the degree of income inequality in this country. — Alan Greenspan

The free lunch has still to be invented. — Alan Greenspan

If prices go down, we will have problems - problems in the sense of spillover to other areas. — Alan Greenspan

Any onset of increased investor caution elevates risk premiums and, as a consequence, lowers asset values and promotes the liquidation of the debt that supported higher asset prices, ... This is the reason that history has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums. — Alan Greenspan

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. — Alan Greenspan

Rules cannot take the place of character. — Alan Greenspan

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

There is no evidence that the business cycle has been repealed. — Alan Greenspan

...our market system depends critically on trust-trust in the word of our colleagues and trust in the word of those with whom we do business. — Alan Greenspan

American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage. — Alan Greenspan

Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money. — Alan Greenspan

While local economies may experience significant price imbalances, a national severe price distortion seems most unlikely in the United States, given its size and diversity. — Alan Greenspan

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

Productivity is notoriously difficult to predict. — Alan Greenspan

Although the outlook is clouded by a number of uncertainties, the central tendencies of the projections .. imply continued good economic performance in the United States. — Alan Greenspan

Well, you probably will always believe there should be laws against fraud, and I don't think there is any need for a law against fraud. — Alan Greenspan

[Republicans] swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose. — Alan Greenspan

These days, even out of office, I still read economic reports. — Alan Greenspan

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

The tub helps me relax, and it's a great place to read. — Alan Greenspan

But rules cannot substitute for character. — Alan Greenspan

Without the triggers, that tax cut is irreponsible fiscal policy. Eventually, I think that will be the consensus view. — Alan Greenspan

I'm a better economist than I was a sax player. — Alan Greenspan

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

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. — Alan Greenspan

History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities. — Alan Greenspan

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

And whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the word economy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil. — Alan Greenspan

Skilled shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. [Visa quotas] have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process we have created [a] privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at non-competitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of the income inequality. — Alan Greenspan

Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern. — Alan Greenspan

If I've made myself clear, I've misspoken. — Alan Greenspan

History demonstrates that participants in financial markets are susceptible to waves of optimism. Excessive optimism shows the seeds of its own reversal in the form of imbalances that tend to grow over time. — Alan Greenspan

In an economy that already has lost some momentum, one must remain alert to the possibility that greater caution and weakening asset values in financial markets could signal or precipitate an excessive softening in household and business spending. — Alan Greenspan

We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs and price stability. — Alan Greenspan

The gut-feel of the 55-year old trader is more important than the mathematical elegance of the 25-year old genius. — Alan Greenspan

The recent evidence increasingly suggests that an economic expansion is already well under way, although an array of influences unique to this business cycle seems likely to moderate its speed. — Alan Greenspan

As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law. — Alan Greenspan

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

I'm a plain soap kind of guy. — Alan Greenspan

Now, I only play very occasionally, and in fact, more piano than clarinet or sax. — Alan Greenspan

Life Lessons by Alan Greenspan

1. Alan Greenspan's work emphasizes the importance of sound economic policies, such as fiscal discipline and monetary stability, in order to sustain long-term economic growth.
2. He also highlighted the need for governments to be flexible and responsive to changing economic conditions in order to avoid recessions and depressions.
3. Finally, he warned against the dangers of excessive debt and advocated for the use of countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate economic downturns.