Institutions of the newer participants in global finance had not been tested, until recently...recent crisis have underscored certain financial structure vulnerabilities that are not readily assuaged in the short run. Alan Greenspan More Quotes by Alan Greenspan More Quotes From Alan Greenspan The Iraq War is largely about oil. Alan Greenspan oil iraq war American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage. Alan Greenspan benefits alternatives might The free lunch has still to be invented. Alan Greenspan free-lunch lunch stills The probability of ten consecutive heads is 0.1 percent; thus, when you have millions of coin tossers, or investors, in the end there will be thousands of very successful practitioners of coin tossing, or stock picking. Alan Greenspan tossers coins successful It's hard to overemphasize how important Ford's deregulation was. True, most of the benefits took years to unfold-rail freight rates, for example hardly budged at first. Yet deregulation set the stage for an enormous wave of creative destruction in the 1980s. Alan Greenspan important creative years Excessive optimism sows the seeds of its own reversal. Alan Greenspan seeds reversal optimism [Republicans] swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose. Alan Greenspan loses republican principles The more flexible an economy, the greater its ability to self-correct in response to inevitable, often unanticipated, disturbances and thus to contain the size and consequences of cyclical imbalances. Alan Greenspan imbalance size self Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. Alan Greenspan support political government The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War. Alan Greenspan retrospect war world History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities. Alan Greenspan probability statistics The guiding purpose of the government regulator is to prevent rather than to create something. Alan Greenspan regulators government purpose I've always argued that this country has benefited immensely from the fact that we draw people from all over the world. Alan Greenspan immigration country people At the risk of some oversimplification, if the skill composition of our work force meshed fully with the needs of our increasingly complex capital-stock, wage-skill differentials would be stable, and the percentage changes in wage rates would be the same for all job grades. Alan Greenspan risk skills jobs Without the triggers, that tax cut is irreponsible fiscal policy. Eventually, I think that will be the consensus view. Alan Greenspan cutting views thinking If I say something which you understand fully in this regard, I probably made a mistake. Alan Greenspan regard made mistake We may be in a rapidly evolving international financial system with all the bells and whistles of the so-called new economy. But the old-economy rules of prudence are as formidable as ever. We violate them at our own peril. Alan Greenspan bells financial may The recent period has been marked by a transformation to an economy that is more productive as competitive forces become increasingly intense and new technologies raise the efficiency of our businesses...While these tendencies were no doubt in train in the "old," pre-1990s economy, they accelerated over the past decade as a number of technologies with their roots in the cumulative innovations of the past half-century began to yield dramatic economic returns. Alan Greenspan technology roots past A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures, because the vast majority of homeowners have built up substantial equity in their homes despite large mortgage-market financed withdrawals of home equity in recent years. Alan Greenspan levels home years The gut-feel of the 55-year old trader is more important than the mathematical elegance of the 25-year old genius. Alan Greenspan genius important years