Alan Greenspan Red Quotations

I do not understand where the backing of Bitcoin is coming from. There is no fundamental issue of capabilities of repaying it in anything which is universally acceptable, which is either intrinsic value of the currency or the credit or trust of the individual who is issuing the money, whether it's a government or an individual.

It is very difficult to predict when a bond crisis could happen.

Much fiscal policy is implemented, not through spending increases, but through tax credits and other so-called tax expenditures. The markets should respond to them as they do spending cuts, with little contraction in economic activity.

I've been around long enough to know that a good deal of the praise heaped on me I had nothing to do with. The only thing I did object to was the fact that where the criticism was actually wrong. Did it bother me? Of course it bothered me. But I've been around long enough to have ups and downs. So you get over it.

There is a huge number of people outside our borders who would love to come here. In fact, many of them come here, get well educated, and then are required to leave... This is a factor in income inequality.

Despite the combination of somewhat slower growth of productivity in recent quarters, higher energy prices, and a decline in the exchange rate for the dollar, core measures of consumer prices have registered only modest increases,

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.

Credit-default swaps, I think, have serious problems associated with them.

The need for values is inbred. Their content is not.

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.

I am honored to be nominated by President Bush and, if confirmed by the Senate, to continue my service as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Every citizen, every citizen must count for opportunities and must be counted for our nation's well being, ... How well we prepare our resources in this area will show in how well prepared we are as a country.

weathered reasonably well the steep rise in spot and futures prices for oil and natural gas.

the amount of rate cuts required to revive the economy will not be deep.

Without the needed restrictions on the size of the GSE balance sheets, we put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for housing,

Before the crisis broke, there was little reason to question the three decades of phenomenally solid East Asian economic growth, largely financed through the banking system, so long as the rapidly expanding economies and bank credit kept the ratio of non-performing loans to total bank assets low,

I would strongly suggest that, while there is an obvious strongly desired sense to move rapidly, it's far more important to be right than quick,

hesitancy to face up to the difficult choices that will be required to resolve our looming fiscal problems.

We have obviously specified implicitly that we prefer to act within our scheduled meetings, ... But we have also shown over the years that when we perceive that actions are required between meetings we have never hesitated to move.

Besides feared shortfalls in crude oil capacity, the status of world refining capacity has become worrisome as well,

It has been an extraordinary privilege to be able to serve my country at the Federal Reserve, and I would be honored if the Senate saw fit to enable me to continue this association for another four years,

A gradual reduction over time of the GSE portfolios should be a non-event to investors and market participants, other than GSE shareholders,

I think the IMF has done as much as it thought it understood it could do, ... I don't know what alternative policies could have been implemented which could have significantly altered the pattern that emerged once the vicious cycle began to accumulate to the degree that it did.

As I indicated several weeks ago to a university audience, ... it is just not credible that the United States, or for that matter Europe, can remain an oasis of prosperity unaffected by a world that is experiencing greatly increased stress.

As I have said previously to this committee, because of the nature of the type of acceleration in productivity and dynamic change that is occurring in the American economy, my first priority would be to allow as much of the surplus to flow through into a reduction in debt to the public,

I would clearly prefer that if you can't run the surpluses, you have to get rid of the surpluses, I would far prefer reducing taxes than increasing spending. I don't think it's a close call,

Threats of deflation, which were a significant concern last year, by all indications are no longer an issue before us, ... That clearly is a change that's occurred in the last number of weeks, and it's a change ... that's been long overdue and is most welcome.

In an environment of weak financial systems, lax supervisory regimes, and vague assurances about depositor or creditor protections, the state of confidence so necessary to the functioning of any banking system was torn asunder.

The system was holding up ... the American economy kept getting battered and battered and battered and it was still standing and indeed, as of Sept. 10, it was still standing,

We're going to be running into very severe pressures in later years, and the better we are prepared in moving into that period, the more likely it is that we will address it in a rational, sensible rational way,

Financial markets, along with households and businesses, seem to be reasonably well prepared to cope with a transition to a more neutral stance of monetary policy, ... Although many factors may affect inflation in the short-run, inflation in the long-run, it is important to remind ourselves, is a monetary phenomenon.

We should not be cutting taxes by borrowing, ... We should be cutting taxes by reducing the level of spending and that's an issue that I think is critically on the table.

Before the recovery process gets under way, stability will need to be restored to the American economy and to others around the world,

History cautions that extended periods of low concern about credit risk have invariably been followed by reversal, with an attendant fall in the prices of risky assets.

The economy suffered significant shocks in late summer and early autumn,

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.

The Federal Reserve has responded to the balance of market forces by gradually raising the federal funds rate over the past year, ... Certainly, to have done otherwise -- to have held the federal funds rate at last year's level even as credit demands and market interest rates rose -- would have required an inappropriately inflationary expansion of liquidity.

The Federal Reserve has been unable to find any credible purpose for the huge balance sheets built by Fannie and Freddie other than the creation of profit through the exploitation of the market-granted subsidy,

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's efforts were designed solely to enhance the probability of an orderly private-sector adjustment, ... No Federal Reserve funds were put at risk, no promises were made by the Federal Reserve and no individual firms were pressured to participate.