Alan Greenspan Quotes

As long as there is cash, and the economy is running, all is well. But as a bank, we'll have to test, experiment, try a hundred different things. A few may work, a few may fail, but we have to experiment and try.

The substantial uncertainty about the path of asset price movements going forward necessarily reduces the case for altering policy in advance of the move.

Every time I get accustomed to low volatility, like we were towards the end of the Greenspan era, and we think we have all the levers under the control... something erupts to remind us that the idea that anybody is in control of everything is hubris.

The Fed cannot levitate markets forever. And when they finally do move, I think we have to be prepared for a considerable amount of turbulence.

A snarky but accurate description of monetary policy over the past five years is that the Federal Reserve successfully replaced the technology bubble with a housing bubble

To be sure, the provision of liquidity alone can by no means solve the problems of credit risk and credit losses; but it can reduce liquidity premiums, help restore the confidence of investors, and thus promote stability.

The goal of long-run economic growth without asset price bubbles is not only achievable, but is something we should expect if we put a sound regulatory framework in place and if policymakers remain vigilant.

Investors need to get rewarded for their investment, especially in unstable countries.

The economics profession advances by one confusing financial disaster at a time.

I don't know what a credit bubble means. I don't even know what a bubble means. These words have become popular. I don't think they have any meaning.

I'm of those who believe that excesses in all matters are not a good idea, whether it's formation of bubbles, whether it's excess in the financial market, whether it's excess of inequality, it has to be watched, it has to be measured, and it has to be anticipated in terms of consequences.

Nobody at CNBC owns gold. Nobody at Bloomberg owns gold. Gold is being constantly talked down by the media, and Fed officials, and economists, who also don't own any gold. They're all stocked up in equities.

Only a strong economy can create higher asset values and sustainably good returns for savers.

Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We'll break out of it. It takes time.

Investors should be cautiously positioned as the global economy and markets face major uncertainties. The downgrade will be a further headwind to growth and job creation in the U.S.

Right now the long-term investors are telling us that they're not as concerned about inflation and so we're seeing these rates now move into the marketplace and out to the street - rates that individuals can get.

In the economy of the cuckoo people that populate central banks, everything is possible. What you have is gigantic bubbles, the NASDAQ in 2000, then the housing bubble and then commodities in 2008 when oil went from $78 to $147 before plunging to $32 within six months.

I don’t care a damn about stocks and bonds, but I don’t want to see them go down the first day I am President.

When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing.

To be sure, booms and busts will come and go. But their severity can vary dramatically based on the policies in place to prevent them. With stronger regulations, neither the housing and derivatives bubbles nor the eventual crash would have been so bad.

Economic freedom is a highly desirable state -- but in bust and boom we must be prepared to face the its consequences.

In a global marketplace with its increased insecurities and - indeed often - volatility and instability, national economic stability is at a premium, the precondition for all we can achieve, and no nation can secure the high levels of sustainable investment it needs without both monetary and fiscal stability together.

It's important for the Fed, hard as it is, to attempt to detect asset bubbles while they're forming.

Aggression at a time when the economy was growing at substantial rates and the retail lending as an industry was growing at a substantial rate was an appropriate aggression. Caution at a time when the economic environment is so uncertain is an appropriate caution.

The Fed should not be responding to the ups and downs of the markets, and it is certainly not our policy to do so. But when there are significant financial developments, it's incumbent on us to ask ourselves what is causing them.