From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries



https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/alan-greenspan-fed-chair-under-4-us-presidents-dies-at-age-100/ar-AA26fHtw?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6a394c5a13ba43f594c59b068e178bfd&ei=28#comments

Alan Greenspan, an economist who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve under
four U.S. presidents, died on Monday, his wife Andrea Mitchell said. He was 100.

Greenspan died at his home due to complications of Parkinson's Disease, Mitchell
said in a statement reported by NBC News, where she is the chief Washington and
foreign affairs correspondent.

As one of the longest-serving Federal Reserve chairs in U.S. history, Greenspan's
reign at the central bank coincided with the so-called Great Moderation, a period
of stability from the mid-1980s until 2007 that was marked by low inflation, stock
market gains and strong economic growth.

"His extraordinary 18 years as chairman left behind an enduring legacy, and his
dedication to the institution, the field of economics and public service continues
to inspire generations of central bankers," John Williams, president and CEO of
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in a statement.

At the same time, Greenspan's tenure was punctuated by several financial crises,
including the 1987 stock market crash and the dot-com collapse in the early 2000s.
In 1996, Greenspan famously coined the phrase "irrational exuberance" to describe bubbles fueled by unbridled investor optimism, alluding to that era's craze for internet company stocks.

More controversially, Greenspan's legacy is linked to the 2008 global financial crisis
and the ensuing Great Recession, although the economic collapse occurred after he ended
his final term as Fed chair in early 2006. Yet some critics pointed to his "loose
money" policies in the preceding years as contributing to the subprime housing crisis
that ultimately caused the greatest U.S. economic collapse since the Great Depression.

Then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan appears at a Senate hearing on Sept. 20, 2001. / Credit: Tim Sloan/AFP via Getty Images
"The main post-crisis criticism of Mr. Greenspan was that he was a naive believer in
market efficiency, failing to pop bubbles in the late 1990s or mid-2000s and failing
to regulate the financial sector properly," The Economist reflected in a 2017 essay.

For his part, Greenspan defended his decisions leading up to the Great Recession,
telling Fortune Magazine in 2007 that he was the victim of "revisionist history" and
that he had warned about subprime mortgages and other red flags brewing in the housing
market.

As a younger economist, Greenspan told Fortune that he had discounted the role of human behavior
in economics, saying he believed it was "not worth evaluating." But he later realized that "there
were very important missing variables in the forecasting system, and these all related to systemic
activities of human beings," Greenspan noted. "You can count that human beings will become euphoric
on occasion, and in deep distress and fear. What you can count on is that will never change," he told
the publication.

As Fed chair, Greenspan also became known for offering often cryptic economic commentary that lawmakers,
economists and investors scrambled to interpret. At the same time, he championed what he described as a
shift away from less informative Fed statements before the 1980s, pushing for greater transparency by
central bankers. "You don't want to surprise the markets unless there is a purpose to it," Greenspan
said in a Federal Reserve oral history in 2009. "Too often in the past we would surprise markets with no
particular purpose, which was not good."

Greenspan was born in New York City on March 6, 1926, to Herbert Greenspan, a stockbroker, and Rose Greenspan,
a homemaker, according to the New York Times. His parents divorced when he was five, partly due to financial
stress stemming from the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash, the Times noted.

As a child, Greenspan exhibited mathematical talent, with the Times noting he could add three-digit sums in
his head at age five. As a teenager, he pursued musical interests, studying the clarinet at Juilliard before
studying economics at New York University, where he eventually earned a bachelor's, master's and doctoral
degree.

While studying economics, Greenspan became a devotee of novelist Ayn Rand, with an NYU alumni magazine reporting
that he met regularly with her "objectivist salon" in her Manhattan apartment.

His first job was with the National Industrial Conference Board, where he analyzed demand for aluminum, copper
and steel, followed by the creation of his economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co., according to the
Federal Reserve.

Later, he served as chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers under President Gerald Ford and as
a member of President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board. Greenspan was appointed Fed chair in 1987
by President Reagan, a role he held under three other presidents: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W.
Bush.


Greenspan, who married the journalist Andrea Mitchell in 1997, retired from the Federal Reserve
Board in 2006.

Asked by Fortune Magazine if any president had ever asked him to cut interest rates while he was Fed chair,
Greenspan said he never got a direct request. "[B]ut a few hinted it. However, I will tell you no politician
ever called me up and asked me to raise interest rates," he noted wryly.

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