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 GREENSPANYet deregulation set the stage for an enormous wave of creative destruction in the 1980s.
More Alan Greenspan Quotes
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Whatever you tax you get less of.
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Greenspan, who knew so much more than most, knew far less than most supposed.
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I’m a better economist than I was a sax player.
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I love facts and figures. It’s like following a detective story, piecing together what’s going on in the economy.
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Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.
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The problem is not lack of regulation but unrealistic expectations. What we confront in reality is uncertainty, some of it frighteningly so…
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If we are dealing with psychology, then the thermometers one uses to measure it have an effect.
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And the percentage changes in wage rates would be the same for all job grades.
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In general, corruption tends to exist whenever governments have favors to extend, or something to sell.
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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.
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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.
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The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.
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Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs.
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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.
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If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
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If all currencies are moving up or down together, the question is: relative to what? Gold is the canary in the coal mine.
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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.
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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.
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Fiat money in extremis is accepted by nobody. Gold is always accepted.
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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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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.
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All taxes are a drag on economic growth. It’s only a question of degree.
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The only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy.
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If we allow terrorism to undermine our freedom of action, we could reverse at least part of the palpable gains achieved by postwar globalization. It is incumbent upon us not to allow that to happen.
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Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary.
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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