Alan Greenspan

The purpose of a politician is to be a leader. A politician has to lead. Otherwise he's just a follower.

— Alan Greenspan

These days, even out of office, I still read economic reports.

— Alan Greenspan

If I say something which you understand fully in this regard, I probably made a mistake.

— Alan Greenspan

I've always considered myself more of a mathematician than a psychologist.

— Alan Greenspan

The number one problem in today's generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy.

— Alan Greenspan

Unless you are willing to compromise, society cannot live together.

— Alan Greenspan

How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?

— Alan Greenspan

All taxes are a drag on economic growth. It's only a question of degree.

— Alan Greenspan

It's hard to tell which assets will be toxic. The best way to ensure that only shareholders and banks feel it is…

— Alan Greenspan

The only thing that was economic, I might say, about my music career, aside from the fact that I did everybody's tax…

— Alan Greenspan

Well, you probably will always believe there should be laws against fraud, and I don't think there is any need for a…

— Alan Greenspan

It's only when the markets are perceived to have exhausted themselves on the downside that they turn. Trying to prevent them from…

— Alan Greenspan

Without the triggers, that tax cut is irreponsible fiscal policy. Eventually, I think that will be the consensus view.

— Alan Greenspan

While local economies may experience significant price imbalances, a national severe price distortion seems most unlikely in the United States, given its…

— Alan Greenspan

Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to…

— Alan Greenspan

The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of…

— Alan Greenspan

“People do not realize in [the U.S], for example, how tenuous our ties to international energy are. That is, we on a…

— Alan Greenspan

A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures, because the…

— Alan Greenspan

The only way you get economic progress, real standards of living moving higher, is to have the savings of the society continuously…

— Alan Greenspan

Skilled shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. [Visa quotas] have been substituted for…

— Alan Greenspan

I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall…

— Alan Greenspan

Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in…

— Alan Greenspan

I have long argued that paying down the national debt is beneficial for the economy: it keeps interest rates lower than they…

— Alan Greenspan

Even though some down payments are borrowed, it would take a large, and historically most unusual, fall in home prices to wipe…

— Alan Greenspan

We really can't forecast all that well, and yet we pretend that we can, but we really can't.

— Alan Greenspan

If you think you understand what I am saying you do not understand what I am saying.

— Alan Greenspan

I love facts and figures. It's like following a detective story, piecing together what's going on in the economy.

— Alan Greenspan

One of the major problems with China is that its innovation is largely borrowed technology.

— Alan Greenspan

History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities.

— Alan Greenspan

We're a democratic society. Shutting down the government should not be on the agenda.

— Alan Greenspan

Markets do very weird things because it reacts to how people behave, and sometimes people are a little screwy.

— Alan Greenspan

Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary.

— Alan Greenspan

[Republicans] swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.

— Alan Greenspan

Anything that we can do to raise personal savings is very much in the interest of this country.

— Alan Greenspan

As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law.

— Alan Greenspan

“government regulation cannot substitute for individual integrity.”

— Alan Greenspan

There's no other job in public life that is like chairman of the Fed.

— Alan Greenspan

There is a limit to how much the United States Treasury can borrow.

— Alan Greenspan

The guiding purpose of the government regulator is to prevent rather than to create something.

— Alan Greenspan

When trust is lost, a nation's ability to transact business is palpably undermined.

— Alan Greenspan