The Oracle Reveals All

You were for years a figure of reassurance, whether during the stock-market crash of 1987 or September 11. People are going to look at the title of your book, "The Age of Turbulence," and say, "My God, if Greenspan thinks this is turbulent, what are we going to do?"
Well, the way I put it in economic terms, provided we can create a sufficiently flexible financial economic system, we can essentially absorb the turbulence and its extremes without significant job loss or economic disruption. Turbulence is, as we get into the 21st century, probably a necessary condition to maintain an economy worldwide as high-powered as the one that now exists.

So we need a certain degree of instability in order to grow?
It appears as though we need a certain degree of turbulence in the financial system to create the stability in the private system. A B-2 bomber is run almost wholly on computerized adjustments. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of adjustments that are going on all the time keep the plane stable. That's not actually a bad analogy to the turbulence in the economy. In one sense it's benevolent turbulence.

Reading your opinions of the various presidents you've worked with, it was surprising that you ranked Clinton near the top, given your personal political views, as well as Nixon, given his reputation.
Both were tops in IQ, not in character. Nixon, as I point out, I really misjudged. He was a Jekyll and Hyde. With Clinton, there's a moral looseness about him. When I heard the rumors about Monica Lewinsky I thought, it's not possible. I don't care how corrupt the president of the United States is, they just don't do that to themselves. The person who had true character was Gerald R. Ford. I felt more comfortable with him, and I trusted him more than anybody.

How about the next president? Hillary Clinton seems to be the front runner on the Democratic side. What's your view on the junior senator from New York?
Very smart. She is probably everything that everybody says about her. She wouldn't be a bad president, but she won't attack the issues which really require coming to grips withduring the campaign. The absolute blindness of candidates to the obvious issue of Medicare's problems is just truly discouraging to me.

Who would you like to win next year?
Is one of the choices leaving the office open?

© 2007