Alan Greenspan Quotes

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
Need to consider not only the most likely future path for the economy but also the distribution of possible outcomes about that path.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Consider Distribution Economy Future Likely Outcome Path Possible
If prices go down, we will have problems – problems in the sense of spillover to other areas.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Area Other Price Problem Spillover
I was raising the question on the side with Governor Mullins of what would happen if the Treasury sold a little gold in this market.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Gold Governor Happen Little Market Question Raise Treasury
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

Chosen Customer Effective Elsewhere Investor Propensity Skill Technical
Before I met Ayn Rand, I was a logical positivist, and accordingly,
ALAN GREENSPAN

Accordingly Before Logical Met People Positivist
Was sort of intellectually shocked. Contagion is the critical phenomenon which causes the thing to fall apart.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Apart Contagion Critical Fall Intellectual Phenomenon Shock Sort
And whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Destruction Mass Over Publicize Weapon Whatever
Senator, we are groping for understanding, the knowledge you assume I possess doesn’t exist’.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Assume Grop Knowledge Possess Exist Senator Understand
Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Create Foreigner Job Little Lose Protectionism Retaliate Surely
I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I’ve said.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Clear Guess Out Particular Turn Warn You
Skilled shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. [Visa quotas] have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Competition Country Force Shied Shortage Skill
Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria. Bubbles go up very slowly as euphoria builds.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Dominant Euphoria Fear Force Many Multiply Size
The recent period has been marked by a transformation to an economy that is more productive as competitive forces become increasingly intense and new technologies raise the efficiency of our businesses…
ALAN GREENSPAN

Business Competitive Economy Force Mark More Period Productive Recent Technology Transformation
Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Characteristics Corruption Embezzlement Everywhere Exist Regrettably
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
Senator, if I seem clear to you, you must have misunderstood me’.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Clear Misunderstood Seem Senator
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.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Bell Call Economy Evolve Financial International Rapid System Whistle
The Iraq War is largely about oil.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Country Largely Oil War
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

Accelerate Circumstance Dramatic Economic Innovation Offer Return Tendency Train
What an ideology is is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Conceptual Del Framework Ideology People Reality
It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Attention Bank Central Currency Market Problem Respect Signal
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

Develop Fiscal Path Place Policy Protection Regard Reluctance Sustainable Trade
I’m not denying that monopolies are terrible things, but I am denying that it is readily easy to resolve them through legislation of that nature.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Deny Monoply Nature Need Readily Resolve Terrible Thing
If we were to do that we would increase the supply of skilled workers that our schools have been unable to create and as a consequence of that we would lower the average wage of skills and reduce the degree of income inequality in this country.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Consequence Country Degree Income Reduce Skill Supply Unable Wage Work
Enhances a person’s ability to handle the more ambiguous and qualitative relationships that dominate our day-to-day financial decision-making
ALAN GREENSPAN

Ability Ambiguous Decision Dominate Enhance Financial Making Person Quantitative Relationship
How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?
ALAN GREENSPAN

Escalate Exuberance Irrational Unduly Value

Other Famous Personalities