Great article. Per other commenter, Volcker did alot of clean up before Greenspan--it's largely forgotten how tough late seventies and early eighties were--12% unemployment--I remember news story in Chicago of people circling the block during the winter to apply for hotel jobs--and eye watering interest rates. Nixon had experimented with price/wage controls, a Republican President, which along with oil embargoes and war debt sent rates to 15%, with inflation's effects forcing Volcker to set prime rate at !9% sending home and car loans well above 20% . It worked but it was brutal. What I most remember though was Greenspan's repeated rejection that anything should be done about the mortgage based securities, over and over, the market would take care of it all. The rating agencies were the weak link, but it's still amazing the Fed or SEC didn't bother to determine what these bonds actually contained. It would all just work itself out. Lesson in part has to be beware of ideological assumptions as Fed Chair because Greenspan's bio will always revolve around 2007-2008. Being in DC was terrifying--no one wanted to be Bernanke, Geitner at NY Fed, or Hank Paulson at Treasury--the latter admitted having thrown-up in a nearby waste can before congressional testimony. There were a handful of days it looked like it all was going down the drain--Andrew Sorkin wrote a pretty good book about it as I recall. Beware the new Fed Chair.
Another great article by Catherine. She does a great job getting out economic information in an informative and understandable manner. Volcker set Greenspan up by making a lot of the hard decisions taking over for Miller and coming out of the Carter administration. He deserves credit for managing monetary policy during his tenure.
Ayn Rand was invited to his swearing in. That should be all we need to explain his governorship. He may have done some good (I'd love to debate that). But he is deeply responsible for so much of the income inequality America experiences today. He was responsible for the barren dessert of fiscal sanity between Volcker and Bernanke. Prove me wrong people!
I would not even attempt to prove you wrong, sir, since you are absolutely right. It will however perhaps be interesting to see how his defenders attempt to deal with this problem. Rampell seems to have dealt with it by not even mentioning Rand's name.
The 2008 recession was not mild, and however mild the other recessions of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s were, they certainly affected my career and earnings, as well as that of millions of others.
Indeed, prior to the Great Recession, the 1991 one that cost GHW Bush his job was easily the worst since the War, and awful. Many young Gen Xers were harmed forever by it.
I’m a trailing-edge (“Generation Jones”) Boomer, so I was in my late 20s at the time, and it changed my whole career outlook. C-suite execs taking fat stock option payouts while laying off thousands of peons to please the Wall Street analysts was a real cynicism-stoker.
Yes, and there’s still the myth that the recessions hit primarily blue-collar workers, that professional, service, retail and white-collar workers aren’t working class or weren’t affected.
Absolutely correct. The only things that saved me during those recessions, and especially during the Financial Crisis of 2008, were the lifelong aversion to consumer debt inculcated in me by my parents, and an even more important factor over which I had little real control: staying employed. In 2008 my retirement savings such as they were lost 50% of their value. If I'd had a pink slip instead of a paycheck during those years, life would be very different now. Millions of capable, hardworking people weren't that lucky: for years, it seemed like nobody was hiring.
An excellent piece of journalism. That was a very colorful obit, about a rich character. (Loved his humor by an economist about women economists.) And yes, a very informative journey along the historical role of the fed under different leaders and bringing us face to face with our current situation. Clearly in Catherine's hands economics is not the dismal science.
The problems with Greenspan were fundamental-- as a disciple of Ayn Rand he raised up the Gospel of selfishness, great for the stock market but bad for large swaths of America, leading of course also to the ultimate rise of Trump. It just cannot be stated strongly enough just how bad her philosophy is. And as to Greenspan's positive bragging about his deliberate obfuscationism, wanting to keep the masses iggerint-- why the heck is that good? A bureaucrat elected by no one to nothing should not act that way.
Never a fan. Pimped for Charles Keating in the eighties, and was one the biggest reasons for the 2008 Great Recession. He probably slept well every night. Cue Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young"
If you subtract out the Clinton eight years where the budget was actually in surplus by the end of the term, Greenspan's record does not look nearly as good. IIRC, he made a comment that the budget surplus might not be such a good thing as it meant taxes were to high. This set the stage for W Bush tax cuts and we all lived through the horrors of the subsequent financial crisis.
Ha, I definitely enjoyed writing showtunes (did it for a few years in college, via the wonderful Princeton Triangle Club) but have no illusions that my writerly talents lie in other media. I'm still a big fan of consuming theater, and rooting on my Triangle classmates who pursued careers in the arts.
Greenspan was a member of Ayn Rand's inner circle. He professed his admiration for her and her "Objectivist" philosophy until the end of his life. I think everything that is written about him should start with these facts. Nobody how loves Ayn Rand should ever be allowed in a position of power since they have shown that both their judgement and humanity are lacking.
Succinct, and spot-on. Sadly, Rand herself was long-gone when millennials like Rampell were coming of age at places like Princeton, and she herself really never had the chance to encounter Randianism in all its ignominy. Even by the time self-admitted Rand devotee Paul Ryan became House Speaker, many journalists and pundits barely mentioned this, and allowed him to just emphasize how much of, in his own mind, a good Catholic he was, ignoring the vast gulf between the economic and social teachings of these two philosophies. And it is much worse a decade later-- if young people are just not taught how awful this philosophy, and this woman, are, we will get neo-Randians openly advocating a return to them.
I’ve always wondered how much of Ayn Rand’s intellectual influence and her philosophy of Objectivism (totally rational self-interest) persisted into her CEA days and particularly his Federal Reserve chairmanship. Rand was his intellectual friend and mentor for much of his early years, and it seemed to me that much of her extremist philosophy seemed to wear off in his later, more consequential years. After all, he wrote a favorable article about a return to the gold standard for Rand’s journal and then ends up as Chairman of the Federal Reserve where, as a central banker, he gets to work with an elastic currency.
This is an interesting story about communication styles, but says little about the very negative outcomes resulting from Fed policy under Greenspan. The 1997 bailout of Asian investment firms was done with no transparency and resulted in an enormous transfer of wealth from the United States to foreign corporations and governments. The dotcom bust in 2001 grew out of Greenspan's laissez faire monetary policies and the greatly weakened regulation of banks that he and Larry Summers orchestrated in the late 1990s. It had enormously negative impacts on the value of people's retirement accounts. And finally the great recession of 2008-09 that resulted in the collapse of two major investment banks and the impoverishment of a huge swath of our population is directly tied to his policies and utter lack of oversight of American financial institutions. Alan Greenspan did more harm to the US economy and the larger political economy than anyone, ever.
I think that Greenspan was typical of others in Rand's inner circle who achieved positions of real influence and power and retained for many years a sentimental attachment to her and her intellectual castles in the air, but had stopped letting them have any practical influence on their actions and thought long before. I had not known that she was present at his swearing-in, and was a little surprised to read it: she was known for being as merciless in searching out and punishing thought crimes as any inquisitor or commissar. Maybe she couldn't make sense of Greenspeak either.
I was trying to find a more apt word for Rand, and all she represented, than 'fairy'. You are at liberty to suggest a better alternative. But rinse and repeat-- Rand=bad.
RIP Alan Greenspan. If you were in high school/college during the Clinton years, you would remember that Republicans often attributed the economic successes during Clinton’s terms to Alan Greenspan. That way they could decouple the policy positions of Clinton with his personal behavior.
Greenspan I think could best be described as a stabilizing force in the economy because of his appeal across political parties. And while I think Bernanke was the right man for the brutal 2008 recession, Greenspan was the right person for the 1990s.
Nothing about Ayn Rand and her hideous quack philosophy was impressive, and members of her cult do not deserve credit when they eventually sloughed off some of her errors.
Ahhh yes, what a bunch of fun it was watching and listening to people try and read the tea leaves on whatever nonsense Greenspan had just garbled out. Well I’m sure the Chairman meant ______ because he was seen to wink his right eye when he said ______ . The Glory Days of economic reporting. Now we’ll have to subscribe to an exclusive feed on a terminal somewhere to glean the words of wisdom of our newest sage.
Great article. Per other commenter, Volcker did alot of clean up before Greenspan--it's largely forgotten how tough late seventies and early eighties were--12% unemployment--I remember news story in Chicago of people circling the block during the winter to apply for hotel jobs--and eye watering interest rates. Nixon had experimented with price/wage controls, a Republican President, which along with oil embargoes and war debt sent rates to 15%, with inflation's effects forcing Volcker to set prime rate at !9% sending home and car loans well above 20% . It worked but it was brutal. What I most remember though was Greenspan's repeated rejection that anything should be done about the mortgage based securities, over and over, the market would take care of it all. The rating agencies were the weak link, but it's still amazing the Fed or SEC didn't bother to determine what these bonds actually contained. It would all just work itself out. Lesson in part has to be beware of ideological assumptions as Fed Chair because Greenspan's bio will always revolve around 2007-2008. Being in DC was terrifying--no one wanted to be Bernanke, Geitner at NY Fed, or Hank Paulson at Treasury--the latter admitted having thrown-up in a nearby waste can before congressional testimony. There were a handful of days it looked like it all was going down the drain--Andrew Sorkin wrote a pretty good book about it as I recall. Beware the new Fed Chair.
Another great article by Catherine. She does a great job getting out economic information in an informative and understandable manner. Volcker set Greenspan up by making a lot of the hard decisions taking over for Miller and coming out of the Carter administration. He deserves credit for managing monetary policy during his tenure.
Ayn Rand was invited to his swearing in. That should be all we need to explain his governorship. He may have done some good (I'd love to debate that). But he is deeply responsible for so much of the income inequality America experiences today. He was responsible for the barren dessert of fiscal sanity between Volcker and Bernanke. Prove me wrong people!
I would not even attempt to prove you wrong, sir, since you are absolutely right. It will however perhaps be interesting to see how his defenders attempt to deal with this problem. Rampell seems to have dealt with it by not even mentioning Rand's name.
So he had a creepy guru, as Tulsi Gabbard does. That should have been disqualifying.
The 2008 recession was not mild, and however mild the other recessions of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s were, they certainly affected my career and earnings, as well as that of millions of others.
Indeed, prior to the Great Recession, the 1991 one that cost GHW Bush his job was easily the worst since the War, and awful. Many young Gen Xers were harmed forever by it.
I’m a trailing-edge (“Generation Jones”) Boomer, so I was in my late 20s at the time, and it changed my whole career outlook. C-suite execs taking fat stock option payouts while laying off thousands of peons to please the Wall Street analysts was a real cynicism-stoker.
Yes, and there’s still the myth that the recessions hit primarily blue-collar workers, that professional, service, retail and white-collar workers aren’t working class or weren’t affected.
Absolutely correct. The only things that saved me during those recessions, and especially during the Financial Crisis of 2008, were the lifelong aversion to consumer debt inculcated in me by my parents, and an even more important factor over which I had little real control: staying employed. In 2008 my retirement savings such as they were lost 50% of their value. If I'd had a pink slip instead of a paycheck during those years, life would be very different now. Millions of capable, hardworking people weren't that lucky: for years, it seemed like nobody was hiring.
An excellent piece of journalism. That was a very colorful obit, about a rich character. (Loved his humor by an economist about women economists.) And yes, a very informative journey along the historical role of the fed under different leaders and bringing us face to face with our current situation. Clearly in Catherine's hands economics is not the dismal science.
The problems with Greenspan were fundamental-- as a disciple of Ayn Rand he raised up the Gospel of selfishness, great for the stock market but bad for large swaths of America, leading of course also to the ultimate rise of Trump. It just cannot be stated strongly enough just how bad her philosophy is. And as to Greenspan's positive bragging about his deliberate obfuscationism, wanting to keep the masses iggerint-- why the heck is that good? A bureaucrat elected by no one to nothing should not act that way.
Thank you JCK <3
nice!
Never a fan. Pimped for Charles Keating in the eighties, and was one the biggest reasons for the 2008 Great Recession. He probably slept well every night. Cue Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young"
If you subtract out the Clinton eight years where the budget was actually in surplus by the end of the term, Greenspan's record does not look nearly as good. IIRC, he made a comment that the budget surplus might not be such a good thing as it meant taxes were to high. This set the stage for W Bush tax cuts and we all lived through the horrors of the subsequent financial crisis.
"I happened to be taking a workshop on musical-theater-writing."
Now I'm worried about Catherine. She had dreams. Is dropping this in the footnotes of an obit of a hundred-year-old Fed Chair a cry for help?
Ha, I definitely enjoyed writing showtunes (did it for a few years in college, via the wonderful Princeton Triangle Club) but have no illusions that my writerly talents lie in other media. I'm still a big fan of consuming theater, and rooting on my Triangle classmates who pursued careers in the arts.
Greenspan was a member of Ayn Rand's inner circle. He professed his admiration for her and her "Objectivist" philosophy until the end of his life. I think everything that is written about him should start with these facts. Nobody how loves Ayn Rand should ever be allowed in a position of power since they have shown that both their judgement and humanity are lacking.
Succinct, and spot-on. Sadly, Rand herself was long-gone when millennials like Rampell were coming of age at places like Princeton, and she herself really never had the chance to encounter Randianism in all its ignominy. Even by the time self-admitted Rand devotee Paul Ryan became House Speaker, many journalists and pundits barely mentioned this, and allowed him to just emphasize how much of, in his own mind, a good Catholic he was, ignoring the vast gulf between the economic and social teachings of these two philosophies. And it is much worse a decade later-- if young people are just not taught how awful this philosophy, and this woman, are, we will get neo-Randians openly advocating a return to them.
Greenspan collected plaudits for harvesting the fruit off a tree Volcker planted and the fall of Communism fertilized.
Bravo!
I’ve always wondered how much of Ayn Rand’s intellectual influence and her philosophy of Objectivism (totally rational self-interest) persisted into her CEA days and particularly his Federal Reserve chairmanship. Rand was his intellectual friend and mentor for much of his early years, and it seemed to me that much of her extremist philosophy seemed to wear off in his later, more consequential years. After all, he wrote a favorable article about a return to the gold standard for Rand’s journal and then ends up as Chairman of the Federal Reserve where, as a central banker, he gets to work with an elastic currency.
This is an interesting story about communication styles, but says little about the very negative outcomes resulting from Fed policy under Greenspan. The 1997 bailout of Asian investment firms was done with no transparency and resulted in an enormous transfer of wealth from the United States to foreign corporations and governments. The dotcom bust in 2001 grew out of Greenspan's laissez faire monetary policies and the greatly weakened regulation of banks that he and Larry Summers orchestrated in the late 1990s. It had enormously negative impacts on the value of people's retirement accounts. And finally the great recession of 2008-09 that resulted in the collapse of two major investment banks and the impoverishment of a huge swath of our population is directly tied to his policies and utter lack of oversight of American financial institutions. Alan Greenspan did more harm to the US economy and the larger political economy than anyone, ever.
The Ayn Rand association is the strangest part of the story. Rand is interesting at age 16 but after that it is just a fairy story.
I think that Greenspan was typical of others in Rand's inner circle who achieved positions of real influence and power and retained for many years a sentimental attachment to her and her intellectual castles in the air, but had stopped letting them have any practical influence on their actions and thought long before. I had not known that she was present at his swearing-in, and was a little surprised to read it: she was known for being as merciless in searching out and punishing thought crimes as any inquisitor or commissar. Maybe she couldn't make sense of Greenspeak either.
Fairy story, or hobgoblin?
Certainly not a hobgoblin as I understand the word.
I was trying to find a more apt word for Rand, and all she represented, than 'fairy'. You are at liberty to suggest a better alternative. But rinse and repeat-- Rand=bad.
RIP Alan Greenspan. If you were in high school/college during the Clinton years, you would remember that Republicans often attributed the economic successes during Clinton’s terms to Alan Greenspan. That way they could decouple the policy positions of Clinton with his personal behavior.
Greenspan I think could best be described as a stabilizing force in the economy because of his appeal across political parties. And while I think Bernanke was the right man for the brutal 2008 recession, Greenspan was the right person for the 1990s.
A very impressive life. RIP.
Nothing about Ayn Rand and her hideous quack philosophy was impressive, and members of her cult do not deserve credit when they eventually sloughed off some of her errors.
Ahhh yes, what a bunch of fun it was watching and listening to people try and read the tea leaves on whatever nonsense Greenspan had just garbled out. Well I’m sure the Chairman meant ______ because he was seen to wink his right eye when he said ______ . The Glory Days of economic reporting. Now we’ll have to subscribe to an exclusive feed on a terminal somewhere to glean the words of wisdom of our newest sage.
Read the footnotes!!!😂 I will never listen to the Raiders March again without hearing Catherine’s jingle lyrics! Great article!
It's catchy, right?!