Alan Greenspan memoir

[Alfonso Jones]

From the Wall Street Journal:

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says the Republican party to which he has belonged all his life deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its small-government principles. Greenspan delivers the withering critique in his memoir, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World."

In the book, scheduled for public release Monday, Greenspan writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb "out of control" spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush's failure to do so "was a major mistake." Republicans in Congress, he writes, "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."

http://wsj.com/article/0,,SB118978549183327730,00.html?mod=djemalert

Sound familiar? It should.

Enjoy.

Alfonso

[Chris Grieb]

On the day Greenspan's book becomes available I am going to the bookstore, finding the book, opening to R in the index to "R" and then reading every reference to Ayn Rand.

I wanted to add that the article looks good. I'm happy Greenspan is also a critic of Bush-Cheney.

Edited September 15, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Alfonso Jones]

On the day Greenspan's book becomes available I am going to the bookstore, finding the book, opening to R in the index to "R" and then reading every reference to Ayn Rand.

I wanted to add that the article looks good. I'm happy Greenspan is also a critic of Bush-Cheney.

I recommend reading the parts inbetween the references to Rand, also. Greenspan = smart guy.

Alfonso

[Alfonso Jones]

More, this time from the New York Times:

Of the presidents he worked with, Mr. Greenspan reserves his highest praise for Bill Clinton, whom he described in the interview as a sponge for economic data who maintained “a consistent, disciplined focus on long-term economic growth.” It was a presidency marred by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he writes, but he fondly describes his alliance with two of Mr. Clinton’s Treasury secretaries, Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers, in battling financial crises in Latin America and then Asia.

By contrast, Mr. Greenspan paints a picture of Mr. Bush as a man driven more by ideology and fulfilling campaign promises made in 2000, incurious about the effects of his own economic policy, and portrays an administration incapable of executing policy.

Mr. Greenspan described his own emotional journey in dealing with Mr. Bush, from an initial elation about the return of his old friends from the Ford White House — including Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — to astonishment and then disappointment at how much they had changed.

“I indulged in a bit of fantasy, envisioning this as the government that might have existed had Gerald Ford garnered the extra 1 percent of the vote he’d needed to edge past Jimmy Carter,” he wrote in his memoir. “I thought we had a golden opportunity to advance the ideals of effective, fiscally conservative government and free markets.”

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/business...&ei=5087%0A

Alfonso

[Chris Grieb]

Alfonso; I am interested in the other parts. Greenspan and the other Fed chairs are probably as important as the American Presidents in this period.

Edited September 15, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is Greenspan on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Alan Greenspan

He brings up a fundamental point that I might discuss elsewhere about the human race not being able to improve its character.

(Hat tip to Laure.)

Michael

[Laure]

Being an economist, I presume he meant that the human race can't improve itself "in the aggregate." I hope individuals can improve themselves! But, "in the aggregate", I'm afraid he might be right. See the movie "Idiocracy"...

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I've given the new memoir a quick skim. The best part of the book is Greenspan's discussion of globalization and the economic effects of Eastern Europe, China and others joining the global market economy. He also some interesting discussions of banking policies in Japan, Putin's Russia, and Italy joining the EU.He maps out the long term trends of globalization as a disinflationary force.

His discussion of technology adoption and comparing the dissemination of computer technologies to the electrification of America starting with the electrification of Lower Manhattan in the 1880's followed by a slow, steady march of electrification elsewhere spurred by risk-taking and capital invetment was also interesting.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Laure,

I not only understand that he meant in the aggregate, I believe this is the cornerstone of the need for ethics on an individual basis. To me, the other part of that statement would be that individually we can improve our own selves through choice.

I am not so sure about the specific matter of human nature he mentioned, though (and the following is in my words, not his): When we are insecure or uncertain, we back up. When we are comfortable, we advance. We have a tendency to go too far if conditions permit and when we perceive we have done so, we act abruptly going in the other direction.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

Laure,

I not only understand that he meant in the aggregate, I believe this is the cornerstone of the need for ethics on an individual basis. To me, the other part of that statement would be that individually we can improve our own selves through choice.

I am not so sure about the specific matter of human nature he mentioned, though (and the following is in my words, not his): When we are insecure or uncertain, we back up. When we are comfortable, we advance. We have a tendency to go too far if conditions permit and when we perceive we have done so, we act abruptly going in the other direction.

Michael

Meanwhile I wait for Amazon to get my copy to me. Shipments to Shanghai take a bit longer unless I want to pay more for shipping than for the book.

Alfonso

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I am getting kind of tickled by the concrete-bound criticisms of Greenspan I am seeing on Objectivist boards, as if he were now an unhappy failure who betrayed his soul.

Dayaamm!

Greenspan said in an interview that he, like us all, sought approval as this was part of human nature. This was enough to get him branded as a social metaphysician. I guess our aspiring Roarks and Galts forgot about psychological visibility and scenes like the following from Atlas Shrugged (p. 679).

"Well, that's one clue to the nature of our secret," said Akston. "Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves—or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth."

"I know," she whispered.

"And if you met those great men in heaven," asked Ken Danagger, "what would you want to say to them?"

"Just … just 'hello,' I guess."

"That's not all," said Danagger. "There's something you'd want to hear from them. I didn't know it, either, until I saw him for the first time"—he pointed to Galt—"and he said it to me, and then I knew what it was that I had missed all my life. Miss Taggart, you'd want them to look at-you and to say, 'Well done.'" She dropped her head and nodded silently, head down, not to let him see the sudden spurt of tears to her eyes. "All right, then: Well done, Dagny!—well done—too well—and now it's time for you to rest from that burden which none of us should ever have had to carry."

"Shut up," said Midas Mulligan, looking at her bowed head with anxious concern.

But she raised her head, smiling. "Thank you," she said to Danagger.

I guess those tears made Dagny Taggart a second-hander social metaphysician, too.

Here's the way I see it. Greenspan analyzed the world and what his real possibility to work in it was, and he used his own mind to decide and do, not the mind of anyone else. He also gathered information like crazy from the best sources he could tap. By doing so, he got to be Alan Greenspan, the man who changed the world for the better.

In compensation, our young Roarks and Galts who condemn him and feel sorry for him get to be little nobodies who bitch on Internet forums.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

I am getting kind of tickled by the concrete-bound criticisms of Greenspan I am seeing on Objectivist boards, as if he were now an unhappy failure who betrayed his soul.

Dayaamm!

Greenspan said in an interview that he, like us all, sought approval as this was part of human nature. This was enough to get him branded as a social metaphysician. I guess our aspiring Roarks and Galts forgot about psychological visibility and scenes like the following from Atlas Shrugged (p. 679).

"Well, that's one clue to the nature of our secret," said Akston. "Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves—or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth."

"I know," she whispered.

"And if you met those great men in heaven," asked Ken Danagger, "what would you want to say to them?"

"Just … just 'hello,' I guess."

"That's not all," said Danagger. "There's something you'd want to hear from them. I didn't know it, either, until I saw him for the first time"—he pointed to Galt—"and he said it to me, and then I knew what it was that I had missed all my life. Miss Taggart, you'd want them to look at-you and to say, 'Well done.'" She dropped her head and nodded silently, head down, not to let him see the sudden spurt of tears to her eyes. "All right, then: Well done, Dagny!—well done—too well—and now it's time for you to rest from that burden which none of us should ever have had to carry."

"Shut up," said Midas Mulligan, looking at her bowed head with anxious concern.

But she raised her head, smiling. "Thank you," she said to Danagger.

I guess those tears made Dagny Taggart a second-hander social metaphysician, too.

Here's the way I see it. Greenspan analyzed the world and what his real possibility to work in it was, and he used his own mind to decide and do, not the mind of anyone else. He also gathered information like crazy from the best sources he could tap. By doing so, he got to be Alan Greenspan, the man who changed the world for the better.

In compensation, our young Roarks and Galts who condemn him and feel sorry for him get to be little nobodies who bitch on Internet forums.

Michael

Not just Dagny Taggart. Consider Ayn Rand's expressed disappointment that not one first-rate mind had emerged to comment on Atlas Shrugged.

Alfonso

[Bidinotto]

I haven't yet gotten Greenspan's book. To those who have: I'd like to see posted some extended excerpts of passages that shed light on his CURRENT view of Rand and Objectivism.

Not your paraphrases or interpretations, mind you -- only complete, uninterrupted sentences, between quotation marks, and in full context.

Thanks.

[Aggrad02]

p.52:

"It did not go unnoticed that Rand stood beside me as I took the oath of office in the presence of President Ford in the Oval Office. Ayn Rand and I remained close until she died in 1982, and I'm grateful for the influence she had on my life. I was intellectually limited until I met her. All of my work had been empirical and numbers-based, never values-oriented. I was talented technician, but that was all. My logical positiveness had discounted history and literature-if you'd ask me whether Chaucer was worth reading, I'd have said, "Don't bother." Rand persuaded me to look at human beings, their values, how they work, what they do and why they do it, and how they think and why they think. This broadened my horizons far beyond the models of economics I'd learn...... All of this started for me with Ayn Rand. She introduced me to a vast realm from which I'd shut myself off."

Under a picture of Arthur Burns and Ayn Rand (two pictures):

"Of all my teachers, Arthur Burns and Ayn Rand had the greatest impact on my life"

And that about as to CURRENT as there is. It seems that Greenspan opinion of Rand and Objectivism hasn't changed overtime.

[Aggrad02]

On pg. 61-62 this was in the 2nd paragraph. It seemed like it could have came right out of Atlas:

"Finally on Sunday August 15, 1971, my phone rang at home-it was Herb Stein, who was then a member of Nixon's Council of Economic Advisors. "I'm calling from Camp David," he said. "The president wanted me to tell you he'll be speaking to the nation and he'll be announcing wage and price controls."........

After Nixon imposed wage controls , I'd fly down to meet with Don Rumsfeld, who was head of the Economic Stabilization Program, the bureaucracy created to administer them. He also ran the Cost of Living Council, where Dick Cheney was his deputy. They asked my advice because I know a great deal about how particular industries worked. But all I could do for them was indicate what type of problem would be created by each type of price freeze. What they were running into was the problem of central planning in a market economy-the market will always undermine any attempt at control...........

Rumsfeld asked me, "What do I do? And I said ,"Simple-raise the price." Situations like this came up week after week, and after a couple of years the whole system fell apart. Much later Nixon said wage and price controls had been his worst policy. "

Economic Stabilization Program?

Cost of Living Council?

No wonder we are in the mess we are in. This bozos have been running our gov. since the 70's.

To bad Greenspan didn't tell Rumsfeld and Cheney the same thing that Galt told Thompson when he aked for help.

--Dustan

[Brant Gaede]

Not just Dagny Taggart. Consider Ayn Rand's expressed disappointment that not one first-rate mind had emerged to comment on Atlas Shrugged.

Do you have a reference? I've never came across anything like this.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Here's the way I see it. Greenspan analyzed the world and what his real possibility to work in it was, and he used his own mind to decide and do, not the mind of anyone else. He also gathered information like crazy from the best sources he could tap. By doing so, he got to be Alan Greenspan, the man who changed the world for the better.

Please specify how and it what way he changed the world for the better.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited September 22, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Here's the way I see it. Greenspan analyzed the world and what his real possibility to work in it was, and he used his own mind to decide and do, not the mind of anyone else. He also gathered information like crazy from the best sources he could tap. By doing so, he got to be Alan Greenspan, the man who changed the world for the better.

Please specify how and it what way he changed the world for the better.

Ba'al Chatzaf

He was responsible for the 1982 Social Security compromise which further entrenched the program into the federal system making medicare and medicaid reform even more problematic too. I could go on and will later.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Please specify how and it what way he changed the world for the better.

Bob,

I am not going to go there. If you want to know something broad, think about the stability of the money you use. I have lived under a very different system and I see the difference. To the extent that central banking is used (and I think it is not the best institution), he did one hell of a job.

Look at what you've got, not at what you think you could have had. There is enormous wealth all round you. You can thank Greenspan for part of that. He made sure people could keep buying and selling stuff with confidence in the money they used.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Look at what you've got, not at what you think you could have had. There is enormous wealth all round you. You can thank Greenspan for part of that. He made sure people could keep buying and selling stuff with confidence in the money they used.

Michael

I would rather thank my productive American countrymen who make the system work in spite of the Federal Reserve Scam. Greenspan wrote an essay in praise of the Gold Standard. Look how he ended up. He slept with the enemy. I see someone like Robert Stadler of -Atlas Shrugged- here. He sold out. Stadler, the character, helps found the National Science Institute. Greenspan the Chairman helps to run The National Bank.

It is the Producers who make goods and services for our scrip counterfeit greenbacks to buy who are the Real Heros. See Fransisco D'anconia's speech on money. Rand got it dead center there.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

Whatever.

Like I said, he gets to be Alan Greenspan. You get to be Bob Kolker.

I, for one, admire this man enormously.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Not your paraphrases or interpretations, mind you -- only complete, uninterrupted sentences, between quotation marks, and in full context.

Robert,

The following is not from the book, but it is from the 60 Minutes interview he made, partially to promote the book. It contains the phrase that has the Objectivist blogs and forums all wound up. A commented transcript is here:

Greenspan Defends Low Interest Rates

Sept. 16, 2007

Here is the intro.

(CBS) Alan Greenspan may go down as one of the best chairmen of the Federal Reserve in American history. His 18-year tenure was marked by unprecedented economic growth, budget surpluses and a booming stock market. And he was praised universally for shepherding the economy through the shock of 9/11.

Now he has written his memoir, "The Age of Turbulence," which comes out just as he's coming under fire -- something he's not used to -- for today's housing and lending crises. His critics say he established a pattern of bailing out Wall Street investors.

Greenspan sat down with correspondent Lesley Stahl for his first major interview, defending himself against the criticism that he should've done something to stop the shady practices in subprime lending. In a rare admission, he told 60 Minutes he missed its significance.

Now here is the part that has hardline Objectivists all bent out of shape.

In the end, he became an economist with his own forecasting firm in New York in the 1950s. That's when he became friends with philosopher Ayn Rand, author of "Atlas Shrugged."

"Was this hot off the press when she gave it to you?" Stahl asks.

"It was still warm when I read it," Greenspan says.

Rand advocated a doctrine of unfettered, unregulated capitalism and Greenspan was one of her most famous disciples, though in a twist of fate, he'd later become the nation's top banking regulator.

Rand had a nickname for her friend: the undertaker.

"She thought you radiated gloom. But Rand also thought that you were too much of a social climber," Stahl remarks.

"I don't know how to respond to that. Everybody is a social climber if you want to put it in one way or another. I mean, and the reason fundamentally is inbred in all of us, is the need to get approval of others. And the ultimate form of getting approval is climbing socially," Greenspan says. "I'm guilty, but then the problem is there's no non-guilties out there."

Michael

[Aggrad02]

I am generally supportive of Greenspan. But his comments are clearly indefensible. He is generalizing to make his social aspirations morally acceptable.

BTW: I can think of one presidential candidate who has stuck with his principles even when compromising them would have helped him "climb" socially.

Edited September 22, 2007 by Aggrad02

[Chris Grieb]

In the little part of the Greenspan book I have looked at he said he made the decision to have a real affect on policy as simply writing for little journals or bull sessions.

He will be on Book TV tonight at 7pm EST.

Edited September 22, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dustan,

I think one should give Greenspan a complete focus on what he said, not just the standard skim-over. Normally social climbing is considered as a means to advancement without merit and even sacrificing your integrity in a hypocritical manner to advance.

But what if the guy is competent as all get out? And he does not sacrifice his core values? Like Greenspan?

I did not get the impression that he was saying we should become social climbers in place of our integrity or work. They did that in The Fountainhead and they do that in politics all the time, but in the real world, this is sometimes a necessary part of the picture. There are other less loaded phrases like "networking" and so forth. I think Greenspan was merely stating that people try to do the best they can in social situations to open opportunities and be accepted, but used the phrase "social climbing" because he got hit with it at short range during the interview. Rather than go on the defensive, he merely identified a fact. (One thing I love about Greenspan is that he gets his cognitive identifications down pat, regardless of how they sound, before he moves to normative evaluations.)

I see nothing wrong with social climbing if someone is highly competent. All he is doing is opening doors of opportunities. I don't have a taste for this, but I certainly would not have sacrificed my integrity by learning a few more social skills, and I would have accomplished even more than I have. Social aspirations certainly can be morally acceptable. They way they are prioritized is where the real moral problem comes in.

Greenspan is right. We all have a need for approval. That's even part of the reason we are on a discussion forum and why some people get so pissed when you disagree with them.

When I was in college, I was in the Boston University hockey band and the leader was a trombonist, Ed Madden. (His claim to fame is that he wrote the lyrics to the song, "By the Light of the Silvery Moon.") Once during a game, I started doing a typical gripe about the music business: It was not how you played, but who you knew that counted in getting gigs. The whole thing was corrupt. Merit meant nothing. Yada yada yada.

After listening to me bitch for a while, he finally got fed up. He said something like this (it has been years) in an extremely exasperated tone: "What the hell's the matter with you? Of course people have to know you. How are they going to hire you if they don't know you?" This came with a nasty look.

I had recently been turned on to Rand around that time and these words stung, not because they were defending social climbing or I had suddenly encountered Ellsworth Toohey, but because they were true and I was allowing oversimplification to cloud my perception.

Just because Greenspan said he was guilty of social climbing does not mean that he thought this was more important than hard work or getting the job done right. He just stated a fact without qualification.

Greenspan remained on good terms with Ayn Rand until the end of her life. Obviously there is a deeper meaning to what he said than the surface meaning. Otherwise, she would have cut him off from her life. She cut off many others for less. Can you imagine Ayn Rand staying warm friends until the end of her life with someone who was a social climber as his primary value? I can't.

Michael