Alan Greenspan, chairman US Federal Reserve
1987-2006
A disciple of libertarian icon Ayn Rand, Greenspan
became chairman of the Fed just in time to save the global economy from the
1987 stock market crash from becoming a full-blown disaster. He went on preside
over the boom years of the 90s and lead the US economy through the aftermath of
the September 11 attacks and was widely referred to as an "oracle"
and "the maestro".
But Greenspan's super-low interest rates and
consistent opposition to regulation of the multitrillion-dollar derivatives
market are now widely blamed for causing the credit crisis. Under Greenspan's
tenure the derivatives market went from barely registering to a $500 trillion industry,
despite billionaire investor Warren Buffett warning that they were
"financial weapons of mass destruction".
His rock-bottom rates encouraged Americans to load
up on debt to buy homes, even when they had no savings, no income and no job
prospects. These so-called sub-prime borrowers were the cannon
fodder for the biggest boom-bust in US history. The housing collapse brought
the global economy to its knees.
He was given an honorary knighthood in 2002 for his
"contribution to global economic stability", but in 2008, at a
Congressional hearing investigating the causes of the financial crisis,
Greenspan finally admitted he "made a mistake in presuming" that financial
firms could regulate themselves.
"You found that your view of the world, your
ideology was not right, it was not working?" Henry Waxman, the committee
chairman, said.
"Absolutely, precisely," Greenspan
replied. "You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I
have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it
was working exceptionally well."
After he quit the Fed, in 2006, Greenspan joined
Pimco, the world's largest bond investor, as a special consultant. Pimco's
co-founder Bill Gross said Greenspan had helped make the firm "billions of
dollars'' in his role as a consultant. Gross said Greenspan's "brilliance" was a
"big money saver for us''. "He's made and saved billions of dollars
for Pimco already,'' Gross said in 2008.He has also advised Deutsche Bank and
hedge fund billionaire John Paulson.
Greenspan has also found time to criticise current
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's programme of quantitative easing. "I've stayed
away from commenting on Fed policy," he said on US TV earlier this month.
"I will say this, however, that the data do show that the expansion of
assets has had very little impact on the economy, for an important reason, that
we've created a major increase in the asset side of the Fed balance sheet and a
very large trillion and a half increase in excess reserves."
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