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 GREENSPANThere’s an interesting question here because if the gold price broke in that context, the thermometer would not be just a measuring tool. It would basically affect the underlying psychology.
More Alan Greenspan Quotes
-
-
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.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
The number one problem in today’s generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
While these tendencies were no doubt in train in the “old,” pre-1990s economy, they accelerated over the past decade as a number of technologies with their roots in the cumulative innovations of the past half-century began to yield dramatic economic returns.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
So there is no reason to suspect that the actual process of boosting rates would be any different.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
Any informed borrower is simply less vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
If prices go down, we will have problems – problems in the sense of spillover to other areas.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
Such caution seems especially warranted with regard to the sharp rise in equity prices during the past two years. These gains have obviously raised questions of sustainability.
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 -
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions.
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.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
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’.
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 -
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 -
What an ideology is is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality.
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 abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the ‘hidden’ confiscation of wealth.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
Unfortunately, Senator, nobody knows where the next innovative idea is coming from.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
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 -
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 -
I’ve always argued that this country has benefited immensely from the fact that we draw people from all over the world.
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 -
Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.
ALAN GREENSPAN -
We cannot rule out a situation in which a preemptive policy tightening becomes necessary.
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.
ALAN GREENSPAN