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You are here: Home / Politics / Adios, Alan

Adios, Alan

by John Cole|  February 1, 20069:20 am| 11 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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This news seems to have been overshadowed by Alito and the SOTU, but it seems to me it is pretty important:

Stepping down on Tuesday after 18 years as steward of the nation’s economy, Alan Greenspan left his successor a wide berth to set his own policy but some major uncertainties about the future.

Text of the Fed’s Statement on Interest Rates (February 1, 2006) Acting with almost choreographic precision, Mr. Greenspan wrapped up his last big initiative as chairman of the Federal Reserve less than an hour before the Senate confirmed Ben S. Bernanke as his successor.

On his last day at the Fed, Mr. Greenspan pushed through one more small increase in short-term interest rates, to 4.50 percent, and signaled that the current series of rate rises was nearing an end.

That gave Mr. Bernanke, a highly respected monetary economist who is to be sworn in on Wednesday, considerable freedom to make his own mark on an economy that performed much better during most of the Greenspan era than many experts thought possible when he took over at the Fed in 1987.

Twenty years seems to be a helluva long time, and I hope Bernanke has as much success.

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11Comments

  1. 1.

    chefrad

    February 1, 2006 at 10:32 am

    “Twenty years seems to be a helluva long time, and I hope Bernanke has as much success.”

    To paraphrase a classic book review:

    “If length be not considered a merit, it hath no other.”

  2. 2.

    The Other Steve

    February 1, 2006 at 11:08 am

    Greenspan’s secret appears to be his ability to play politics.

    Paul Volcker was the guy(appointed by Carter) who really laid out the plan for what Greenspan has done over time in terms of monetary policy.

    But Volcker didn’t last. That’s because he had to do some drastic changes to get us out of stagflation, which threw the country into a bad recession. But rather than trying to weasel around it, he told it like it was. This pissed people off, and needless to say he didn’t last long.

    Greenspan on the other hand is far better at saying nothing, so people can’t really get pissed off at him too much.

  3. 3.

    Faux News

    February 1, 2006 at 11:52 am

    Um I hate to rain on your parade John, but Pat Buchanan et. al. have a different take on this:

    http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_02_13/feature.html

  4. 4.

    RonB

    February 1, 2006 at 1:02 pm

    According to Bob Woodward, Greenspan was especially adept in getting the Reserve banks to get on board during a crisis like the Bank of Mexico bailout. To hear him tell it, Greenspan knew he didn’t have the big picture, he was doing the best he could with the models available.

  5. 5.

    Perry Como

    February 1, 2006 at 4:35 pm

    I hope Bernanke has as much success.

    If by “success” you mean “dramatically inflating the money supply”, well, Helicopter Bernanke will probably accomodate. A good read.

  6. 6.

    Birkel

    February 1, 2006 at 4:39 pm

    If the last 18 years don’t rate a financial success in America’s history to the posters above then they are merely worthless trolls. And they smell funny, or something.

    Go ask around the world to find an economy that did as well. Go ahead. Try really hard.

    (And it wasn’t Paul Volcker who started the monetarist revolution. It was Uncle Milty, aka Milton Friedman.)

  7. 7.

    Perry Como

    February 1, 2006 at 5:09 pm

    Spend more, save less. Run up insane defecits and above all, keep printing that paper. If things start to waver, make sure you stop reporting on the cash that gets injected overseas. We’re a bunch of drunks at a party and our host Mr. Greenspan has been plying us with booze for the last 20 years. Eventually the party is going to end and the hangover is going to be directly proportional to how much we drank.

    Unless you believe that parties can go on indefinitely.

  8. 8.

    Steve

    February 1, 2006 at 8:50 pm

    Of course it’s been a financial success. We have more credit than any other nation on earth and we’ve plundered it to the max to keep ourselves going. Naturally we’re doing far better than those who are forced to live within their means.

  9. 9.

    Chris P

    February 1, 2006 at 10:18 pm

    The Daily Show did a tribute episode to Greenspan last night. It’ll probably be up on their website soon.

  10. 10.

    Grotesqueticle

    February 6, 2006 at 5:24 pm

  11. 11.

    Grotesqueticle

    February 6, 2006 at 5:26 pm

    Ahem

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