Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan (Getty Images) Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made headlines about a year ago when one of his favorite measures of economic health was revealed. Underpants. In January, 2008, NPR's Robert Krulwich revealed the tidbit in a piece he did on Greenspan upon the release of Greenspan's book, The Age of Turbulence . In it, Krulwich explained that the sale of men's underwear is "pretty much a flat line, it hardly ever changes," and when it dips, that spells trouble. ( Listen to the original NPR piece here ) The Huffington Post reported Thursday that trouble has arrived. A revised survey by ... Read Full Story

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Friday that the Fed risks igniting a burst of inflation if it does not withdraw its extensive support for the economy at the right moment. "You cannot afford to get behind the curve on reining in this extraordinary amount of liquidity because that will create an enormous inflation down the road," Greenspan said at a forum hosted by The Atlantic magazine, the Aspen Institute and the Newseum. In its battle against the worst financial crisis in 70 years, the Fed has chopped interest rates to zero and flooded the financial system with hundreds ... Read Full Story

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan predicts that the unemployment rate will push past 10 percent and stay at that level for a while. "Pretty awful" is how Greenspan describes Friday's report that the unemployment rate has risen to 9.8 percent. He says the growing number of Americans who have been out of work six months or longer is of particular concern because jobless workers lose skills over such a long period. Greenspan says he would advise President Barack Obama to focus on getting the economy going, but not to go too far. He says a second economic stimulus is not called for because ... Read Full Story

LONDON (Reuters) - Another global financial crisis is inevitable because human nature always reverts to "speculative excesses" during a period of sustained prosperity, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said. "The crisis will happen again but it will be different," he told BBC Two's "The Love of Money" television series. "That is the unquenchable capability of human beings when confronted with long periods of prosperity to presume that that will continue," he said. Greenspan, speaking to the BBC to mark the first anniversary of the fall of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, said Britain will be hit worse than the U.S. by the ... Read Full Story

In the article--The Fed Didn't Cause the Housing Bubble--Alan Greenspan defends himself. No doubt this makes for interesting reading. And, equally interesting conclusions. How much does it matter whether the bubble was caused by inappropriate monetary policy, over which policy makers have control, or broader global forces over which their control is limited? A great deal. If it is monetary policy that is at fault, then that can be corrected in the future, at least in principle. If, however, we are dealing with global forces beyond the control of domestic monetary policy makers, as I strongly suspect is the case, then we are facing ... Read Full Story