Alan Greenspan

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Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist and Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He is considered by many to be the leading authority and key participant concerning United States domestic economic policy. For example, he has been instrumental in how the U.S. government deals with inflation. Given the breadth of his experience, he has been referred to in the media as "the economist's economist".

He was born in New York City, earned an Master's degree in Economics in 1950 from New York University, and a Ph.D in Economics in 1977. He also attended Columbia University for advanced graduate study. He was a friend of Ayn Rand and was a strong intellectual advocate of the capitalist or even so-called supercapitalist system and the societial ideas and values it represented. (It has been suggested by conspiracy theorists that he is living out the role of Francisco d'Anconia, a character in Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged whose purpose was to throw a spanner in the works of the world's economic system to hasten its collapse. This theory is supposed to explain the disconnect between his stated Randian beliefs and early writings on the gold standard, etc., and his actions as governor of the US Federal Reserve) In the mid-1980s, Greenspan was on the board of directors of Alcoa.

Mr. Greenspan is Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Board, an office he first took on August 11, 1987. He was reappointed to an unprecedented fourth term on June 20, 2000 (which ends on June 20, 2004). He has been appointed to this post by U.S. Presidentss Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. From 1974 to 1977, he was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Gerald Ford.

His honorary titles include Knight Commander of the British Empire, bestowed in 2002.

Quotes

- "But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?", Francis Boyer Lecture of The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C., December 5, 1996 [1]