Alan Greenspan at 81 is still the most influential and newsworthy octogenerian sage in the world muses in his memoir on global economy and war in Iraq as war for oil also denies that he held back criticism of the administration's fiscal policies while he led as Fed chairman US Economy for 18 years until January 2006 have played a major role in engineering 1991-2001 economic expansion, the longest in America history which eventually collapsed as he acknoledges in his testemony now:
It was the failure to properly price such risky assets that precipitated the crisis. In recent decades, a vast risk management and pricing system has evolved, combining the best
insights of mathematicians and finance experts supported by major advances in computer and communications technology. A Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of the pricing model
that underpins much of the advance in derivates markets. This modern risk management paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last
year because the data inputted into the risk management models generally covered only the past two decades, a period of euphoria. Had instead the models been fitted more appropriately
to historic periods of stress, capital requirements would have been much higher and the
financial world would be in far better shape today, in my judgment.
The financial landscape that will greet the end of the crisis will be far different from the one that entered it little more than a year ago. Investors, chastened, will be exceptionally
cautious. Structured investment vehicles, Alt-A mortgages, and a myriad of other exotic financial instruments are not now, and are unlikely to ever find willing investors. Regrettably, also
on that list are subprime mortgages, the market for which has virtually disappeared. Home and small business ownership are vital commitments to a community. We should seek ways to
reestablish a more sustainable subprime mortgage market. This crisis will pass, and America will reemerge with a far sounder financial system.
Some gnomes of Greenspan's predictions for the U.S. economy in 2030, when he predicts China will be the US major competitor.
"I thought that the structure of the tax cut was fine, but that
it had to be paid for but people just weren't listening to what I was saying, I went through testimony after testimony with glassy-eyed congressmen and senators out there."
Greenspan is a master of constructive ambiguity. As one of the world’s most respected economists, his rare public utterances were often opaque and always carefully managed but if he was perceived to have no charisma, that was fine by him, provided the world’s markets responded as he intended
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Alan Greenspan was known as the world's most powerful economist wrote his Memoirs 'The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World' as latest republican presidency verdict: " I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil as Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East. He writes 'Much to my disappointment, economic policymaking in the Bush administration remained firmly in the hands of White House staff' which told him the president wanted to avoid antagonising Republican political leadership while to his mind, 'Bush's collaborate-don't-confront approach was a major mistake -- it cost the nation a check-and-balance mechanism essential to fiscal discipline,' which Greenspan consistently pursued while acknoledging real estate bubble creation.
