Alan Greenspan Popular Books

Alan Greenspan Biography & Facts

Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He worked as a private adviser and provided consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. First nominated to the Federal Reserve by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006, after the second-longest tenure in the position, behind only William McChesney Martin. President George W. Bush appointed Ben Bernanke as his successor. Greenspan came to the Federal Reserve Board from a consulting career. Although he was subdued in his public appearances, favorable media coverage raised his profile to a point that several observers likened him to a "rock star". Democratic leaders of Congress criticized him for politicizing his office because of his support for Social Security privatization and tax cuts. Many have argued that the "easy-money" policies of the Fed during Greenspan's tenure, including the practice known as the "Greenspan put", were a leading cause of the dot-com bubble and subprime mortgage crisis (the latter occurring within a year of his leaving the Fed), which, said The Wall Street Journal, "tarnished his reputation". Yale economist Robert Shiller argues that "once stocks fell, real estate became the primary outlet for the speculative frenzy that the stock market had unleashed". Greenspan argues that the housing bubble was not a result of low-interest short-term rates but rather a worldwide phenomenon caused by the progressive decline in long-term interest rates – a direct consequence of the relationship between high savings rates in the developing world and its inverse in the developed world. Early life and education Greenspan was born in the Washington Heights area of New York City. His father, Herbert Greenspan, was of Romanian Jewish descent, and his mother, Rose Goldsmith, was of Hungarian Jewish descent. After his parents divorced, Greenspan grew up with his mother in the household of his maternal grandparents who were born in Russia. His father worked as a stockbroker and consultant in New York City. Greenspan attended George Washington High School from 1940 until he graduated in June 1943, where one of his classmates was John Kemeny. He played clarinet and saxophone along with Stan Getz. He further studied clarinet at the Juilliard School from 1943 to 1944. Among his bandmates in the Woody Herman band was Leonard Garment, Richard Nixon's special counsel. In 1945, Greenspan attended New York University's Stern School of Business, where he earned a B.A. degree in economics summa cum laude in 1948 and an M.A. degree in economics in 1950. At Columbia University, he pursued advanced economic studies under Arthur Burns but withdrew because of his increasing work demand at Townsend-Greenspan & Company. In 1977, Greenspan obtained a Ph.D. in economics from New York University. His dissertation is not available from the university since it was removed at Greenspan's request in 1987, when he became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. In April 2008, however, Barron's obtained a copy and notes that it includes "a discussion of soaring housing prices and their effect on consumer spending; it even anticipates a bursting housing bubble". Career Before the Federal Reserve During his economics studies at New York University, Greenspan worked under Eugene Banks, a managing director at the Wall Street investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman, in the firm's equity research department. From 1948 to 1953, Greenspan worked as an analyst at the National Industrial Conference Board (currently known as the Conference Board), a business- and industry-oriented think tank in New York City. Before he was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve, from 1955 to 1987, Greenspan was chairman and president of Townsend-Greenspan & Co., Inc., an economics consulting firm in New York City. His 32-year stint there was interrupted only from 1974 to 1977, when he served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, under President Gerald Ford. In mid-1968, Greenspan agreed to serve as Richard Nixon's coordinator on domestic policy in the nomination campaign. Greenspan has also served as a corporate director for Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa); Automatic Data Processing; Capital Cities/ABC, Inc.; General Foods; J.P. Morgan & Co.; Morgan Guaranty Trust Company; Mobil Corporation; and the Pittston Company. He was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations foreign policy organization between 1982 and 1988. He also served as a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty in 1984. Chairman of the Federal Reserve On June 2, 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Greenspan as a successor to Paul Volcker, as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the Senate confirmed him on August 11, 1987. Investor, author and commentator Jim Rogers has said that Greenspan lobbied to get this chairmanship. Two months after his confirmation, Greenspan said immediately following the 1987 stock market crash that the Fed "affirmed today its readiness to serve as a source of liquidity to support the economic and financial system". Although the Federal Reserve followed its announcement with monetary policy actions, which became known as the Greenspan put, George H. W. Bush attributed his re-election loss to a sluggish response. Democratic president Bill Clinton reappointed Greenspan, and consulted him on economic matters. Greenspan lent support to Clinton's 1993 deficit reduction program. Greenspan was fundamentally a monetarist and Austrian Economist in orientation on the economy, and his monetary policy decisions largely followed standard Taylor rule prescriptions (see Taylor 1993 and 1999). Greenspan also played a key role in organizing the U.S. bailout of Mexico during the 1994–1995 Mexican peso crisis. In 2000, Greenspan raised interest rates several times; these actions were believed by many to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. According to Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, however, "he didn't raise interest rates to curb the market's enthusiasm; he didn't even seek to impose margin requirements on stock market investors. Instead, he waited until the bubble burst, as it did in 2000, then tried to clean up the mess afterward". E. Ray Canterbery agrees with Krugman's criticism. In January 2001, Greenspan, in support of President Bush's proposed tax decrease, stated that the federal surplus could accommodate a significant tax cut while paying down the national debt. In autumn 2001, as a decisive reaction to the September 11 attacks and various corporate scandals which undermined the economy, the Greenspan-led Federal Reserve initiated a series of interest cuts that brought down the federal funds rate to 1% in 2004. While presenting the Federal Reserve's Monetary Policy.... Discover the Alan Greenspan popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Alan Greenspan books.