People dont realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but thats as far as we go. And Ive had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward.
ALAN GREENSPANIf 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.
More Alan Greenspan Quotes
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If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.
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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 only effective regulation lies in the propensity of customers to choose alternatives, of investors to move their funds elsewhere and of labour to acquire technical skills’.
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In general, corruption tends to exist whenever governments have favors to extend, or something to sell.
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Cash is available and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this.
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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.
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The tub helps me relax, and it’s a great place to read.
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By far the most significant event in finance during the past decade has been the extraordinary development and expansion of financial derivatives.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Enhances a person’s ability to handle the more ambiguous and qualitative relationships that dominate our day-to-day financial decision-making
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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.
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Since I’ve become a central banker, I’ve learned to mumble with great incoherence.
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American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the word economy.
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It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade.
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Excessive optimism shows the seeds of its own reversal in the form of imbalances that tend to grow over time.
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We cannot rule out a situation in which a preemptive policy tightening becomes necessary.
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…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.
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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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Any informed borrower is simply less vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
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I’m a plain soap kind of guy.
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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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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.
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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.
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We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power.
ALAN GREENSPAN