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The free lunch has still to be invented.

Alan Greenspan

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Confiscation Deficit Scheme Simply Spend
The problem is not lack of regulation but unrealistic expectations. What we confront in reality is uncertainty, some of it frighteningly so…
ALAN GREENSPAN

Confront Expectation Frightened Lack Problem Regulation Unrealistic
But rules cannot substitute for character.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Character Rule Substitute
We will have more crises and none of them will look like this because no two crises have anything in common except human nature.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Anything Common Crise Human Like Look Nature
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.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Better Built Decade Example Financial Market Mousetrap People
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

Ability Correct Economy Flexible Greater Inevitable More Response Self Unanticipated
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Absence Confiscation Good Inflation Protect Saving Standard
It is this superlatively moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats, and the chronic goad of fear.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Goad Growth Improve Mean Preventative Snoop Statics System
Then fear hits, and it comes down very sharply. When I started to look at that.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Come Down Fear Hit Look Sharply Start That
Everyone has one. You have to, to exist you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Accurate Everyone Exist Ideology Need Question
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

Central Cloud Country Number Outlook Projection Tendency Uncertain
As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Alternative Currency Issue Law Legal Long Tender
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.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Base Business Deal Fear Force Regulation Undermine
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

Asset Escalate Exuberance Irrational Unduly Value
No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Abnormal Exposure Haul Long Matter No Return Scheme Skillful Sustain Trade
This is the reason that history has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Aftermath History Period Premium Protract Reason Risk

The free lunch has still to be invented.

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The free lunch has still to be invented.

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