Alan Greenspan news stories on Newser

Who's to Blame for America's Massive Debt?

Neal Colgrass — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:27:05 CDT

The United States started 2001 with a cozy nest egg of more than $2 trillion, and now the country owes about $10 trillion—but who's to blame? Put simply, Obama-era policies account for $1.7 trillion of the debt, and Bush policies for over $7 trillion, the Washington Post reports...

Greenspan: Forget Stimulus, Let Markets Take Over

Nick McMaster — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:05:05 CDT

Alan Greenspan says stimulus spending isn't perking up the economy as much as hoped—and that at this point, it's better to let businesses and the markets handle the recovery, the Wall Street Journal reports. “We’d probably be better off doing less than more” because “you’d be far better off...

Shut Up, Alan Greenspan

Kevin Spak — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:37:31 CDT

Former fed chairman Alan Greenspan warned this weekend that the US is headed for a double-dip recession, which might be frightening news, if we didn’t have a conflicting opinion—from former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan! Just 4 months ago, Greenspan said odds of a double-dip recession had fallen drastically. “Greenspan...

Motto for Our Era: Don't Blame Me

John Johnson — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:32:49 CDT

Watching Alan Greenspan's don't-blame-me testimony on Capitol Hill leads Frank Rich to pronounce that "we live in a culture where accountability and responsibility are forgotten values." It's always somebody else's fault. This goes beyond the financial sector, with hollow apologies and obfuscations cropping up everywhere from the Vatican to Tiger...

Greenspan: We Did 'the Best We Could'

John Johnson — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:34:13 CDT

Alan Greenspan is taking more heat on Capitol Hill today as a three-day series of hearings begins on the economic meltdown. “What we tried to do was the best we could with the data that we had,” the former Fed chief told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. “Did we make...

Social Security to Take In Less Than It Pays Out in 2010

Rob Quinn — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:33:00 CDT

The recession has battered Social Security, too: The program will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes this year, says the Congressional Budget Office. The system hadn't been expected to reach its "tipping point" until 2016. The change will have no effect on benefits, but analysts...

Greenspan Portraits Sink in Value

John Johnson — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:48:00 CST

Here's a sign of the times: Whimsical portraits of Alan Greenspan—from his days as a rock star central banker—that were once hot commodities have sunk in value. Not too long ago, these oil paintings and prints by Erin Crowe fetched up to $10,000. Now, not so much....

Financial Reform: How to Prevent Another Greenspan

Rob Quinn — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:44:29 CST

There's a lot riding on reform of the financial industry, but the administration's plans to overhaul financial regulation carries the seeds of its own destruction, writes Thomas Frank. Taking oversight away from the present confusing array of agencies and making the Federal Reserve One Big Regulator means that when the...

Soros to Spend $50M to Reinvent Economics

Jason Farago — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:44:16 CDT

George Soros has decided to spend $50 million to launch a new think tank charged with reinventing the field of economics, which the Hungarian-American billionaire calls "a dogma whose time has passed." The Institute of New Economic Thinking, whose board members include luminaries such as Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs,...