Alan Greenspan

"An area in which more rather than less government involvement is needed, in my judgment, is the rooting out of fraud. It is the bane of any market system."

"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."

"From the development of the textile loom two centuries ago to today's Internet, output per hour has increased fifty fold."

"Much of the securitization took the form of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) with senior credit tranches certified by rating agencies as AAA. It was the failure to properly price such risky assets that characterized the crisis."

"We are going through a period with no precedent in American history."

"I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant"

"I got to know a lot of people on Wall Street. I used to tell then that Alan Greenspan was a musician. He was at Juilliard when I was there, a clarinet major, and he played in the Henry Jerome Band at the . After he became chairman of the Fed, Time had his picture on the cover, and inside they had a picture of him with the Edison Hotel band. One of the guys said, "I don't understand something. Why did Greenspan give up the music business, to become an economist?" "Very simple," I told him, "you should have heard him play the clarinet.""

"If you look at the speeches he gave just before he left the Fed, it's pretty much “After me - the Deluge. I'm getting out while my reputation's intact”."

"If you want a simple model for predicting the unemployment rate in the United States over the next few years, here it is: It will be what Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a random error reflecting the fact that he is not quite God."

"Greenspan doesn't get out of bed before examining the political consequences."

"I would not only reappoint Mr. Greenspan -- if Mr. Greenspan should happen to die, God forbid -- I would do like was did in the movie, 'Weekend at Bernie's.' I'd prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him and keep him as long as we could."

"The most devoted member of (Ayn Rand's) inner circle was Alan Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for Rand were those published in a book he co-edited with her called Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into government. There is no need for the regulation of business—even builders or Big Pharma—he argued, as 'the "greed" of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking … is the unexcelled protector of the consumer.' As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a 'superlatively moral system.'"

"Gold ist eine Währung. Es ist immer noch – nach allen Belegen – die Premiumwährung, wobei keine Fiat-Währung, inklusive des Dollars, ihr gleich kommt."

"Wenn sie zu groß sind, um Bankrott zu gehen, sind sie zu groß. ... In 1911 zerschlugen wir Standard Oil. Na, und was passierte? Die einzelnen Teile wurden wertvoller als das Ganze. Kann sein, dass es das ist, was wir brauchen."

"Zunächst, lasst uns darüber im Klaren sein, dass es sich hier um ein Ereignis handelt, das einmal in einem halben Jahrhundert, vielleicht einmal in einem Jahrhundert auftritt."

"Seit ich Notenbanker geworden bin, habe ich gelernt, in großer Zusammenhanglosigkeit zu murmeln. Wenn ich Ihnen über Gebühr klar erscheine, müssen Sie falsch verstanden haben, was ich gesagt habe."