新型コロナウイルスパニックで金融市場が大荒れの今こそ,過去の危機の際の状況や,それに対してどう対処してきたかを振り返るために最適の一冊。
「I thought the best strategy was to observe and wait until we understood better what the precise fallout from 9/11 would be.」(p.7)
慌てて右往左往せずに,まずは事態を鳥瞰して理解することの大切さを再認識させられた。
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The Age of Turbulence (Asian Export Edition) ペーパーバック – 2007/9/17
英語版
Alan Greenspan
(著)
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, in his fourteenth year as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan took part in a very quiet collective effort to ensure that America didn't experience an economic meltdown, taking the rest of the world with it. There was good reason to fear the worst: the stock market crash of October 1987, his first major crisis as Federal Reserve Chairman, coming just weeks after he assumed control, had come much closer than is even today generally known to freezing the financial system and triggering a genuine financial panic. But the most remarkable thing that happened to the economy after 9/11 was...nothing. What in an earlier day would have meant a crippling shock to the system was absorbed astonishingly quickly.
After 9/11 Alan Greenspan knew, if he needed any further reinforcement, that we're living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even 20 years ago. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan's incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill-channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He begins his account on that September 11th morning, but then leaps back to his childhood, and follows the arc of his remarkable life's journey through to his more than 18-year tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from 1987 to 2006, during a time of transforming change.
Alan Greenspan shares the story of his life first simply with an eye toward doing justice to the extraordinary amount of history he has experienced and shaped. But his other goal is to draw readers along the same learning curve he followed, so they accrue a grasp of his own understanding of the underlying dynamics that drive world events. In the second half of the book, having brought us to the present and armed us with the conceptual tools to follow him forward, Dr. Greenspan embarks on a magnificent tour de horizon of the global economy. He reveals the universals of economic growth, delves into the specific facts on the ground in each of the major countries and regions of the world, and explains what the trend-lines of globalization are from here. The distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, The Age of Turbulence will stand as Alan Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy.
After 9/11 Alan Greenspan knew, if he needed any further reinforcement, that we're living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even 20 years ago. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan's incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill-channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He begins his account on that September 11th morning, but then leaps back to his childhood, and follows the arc of his remarkable life's journey through to his more than 18-year tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from 1987 to 2006, during a time of transforming change.
Alan Greenspan shares the story of his life first simply with an eye toward doing justice to the extraordinary amount of history he has experienced and shaped. But his other goal is to draw readers along the same learning curve he followed, so they accrue a grasp of his own understanding of the underlying dynamics that drive world events. In the second half of the book, having brought us to the present and armed us with the conceptual tools to follow him forward, Dr. Greenspan embarks on a magnificent tour de horizon of the global economy. He reveals the universals of economic growth, delves into the specific facts on the ground in each of the major countries and regions of the world, and explains what the trend-lines of globalization are from here. The distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, The Age of Turbulence will stand as Alan Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy.
- 本の長さ544ページ
- 言語英語
- 出版社Penguin Pr
- 発売日2007/9/17
- 寸法16.41 x 4.37 x 24.18 cm
- ISBN-101594201471
- ISBN-13978-1594201479
商品の説明
著者について
Alan Greenspan was born in 1926 and reared in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. After studying the clarinet at Juilliard and working as a professional musician, he earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in economics from New York University. In 1954, he cofounded the economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co. From 1974 to 1977, he served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Gerald Ford. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed him chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, a position he held until his retirement in 2006. He is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller The Age of Turbulence.
登録情報
- 出版社 : Penguin Pr (2007/9/17)
- 発売日 : 2007/9/17
- 言語 : 英語
- ペーパーバック : 544ページ
- ISBN-10 : 1594201471
- ISBN-13 : 978-1594201479
- 寸法 : 16.41 x 4.37 x 24.18 cm
- カスタマーレビュー:
著者について
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著者の本をもっと発見したり、よく似た著者を見つけたり、著者のブログを読んだりしましょう
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カスタマーレビュー
星5つ中4.4つ
5つのうち4.4つ
全体的な星の数と星別のパーセンテージの内訳を計算するにあたり、単純平均は使用されていません。当システムでは、レビューがどの程度新しいか、レビュー担当者がAmazonで購入したかどうかなど、特定の要素をより重視しています。 詳細はこちら
281グローバルレーティング
虚偽のレビューは一切容認しません
私たちの目標は、すべてのレビューを信頼性の高い、有益なものにすることです。だからこそ、私たちはテクノロジーと人間の調査員の両方を活用して、お客様が偽のレビューを見る前にブロックしています。 詳細はこちら
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トップレビュー
上位レビュー、対象国: 日本
レビューのフィルタリング中に問題が発生しました。後でもう一度試してください。
2008年12月30日に日本でレビュー済み
Amazonで購入
Regardless of the hindsight by some critics on Allan Greenspan's stewardship of the Federal Reserve, I found his narratives on his tenures at the various private and public posts every interesting and informative. This book also gave me a glimpse into the inner working on the FOMC. His relatively calm take on the US budget deficit and national debt is contrary to many economic naysayers and alarmists. As far as his forecast for 2030, he was humble enough not to say too much, as it would be virtually impossible to predict what the world would be in 2030, given the unlimited variables in play. I hope he would author a follow up book on the economy in a few years (if not sooner) since the world economy has been reeling from the financial crisis and severe credit crunch. Would he admit he was blind the warning signs as he had a full faith in the unfettered free market and laissez-faire economy.
2015年3月27日に日本でレビュー済み
Amazonで購入
現代資本主義社会の本質を鋭くついた筆致で諸問題の理解に役立つ一冊。
2007年11月24日に日本でレビュー済み
Amazonで購入
グリーンスパンの自伝で話題性も高いが、内容も十分に伴っている。
後半部分は現代の経済に関する様々な話題(BRICsや経済的格差、環境問題など)を論じており、どれも高い水準で且つ鋭い指摘が随所に見られるの読み物になっている。
また、その英語の文体も洗練されており(グリーンスパンなのだから当然なのだが)、金融・経済について英語で話したり書いたりしなければならない機会をもつノンネイティブ(私のような)の人間にとっては参考になる表現が満載である。
他のビジネス書を読む時間があるなら、まず本書を読むべきであろう。
後半部分は現代の経済に関する様々な話題(BRICsや経済的格差、環境問題など)を論じており、どれも高い水準で且つ鋭い指摘が随所に見られるの読み物になっている。
また、その英語の文体も洗練されており(グリーンスパンなのだから当然なのだが)、金融・経済について英語で話したり書いたりしなければならない機会をもつノンネイティブ(私のような)の人間にとっては参考になる表現が満載である。
他のビジネス書を読む時間があるなら、まず本書を読むべきであろう。
2007年10月6日に日本でレビュー済み
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18歳の音大生がジャズのプレーヤーを目指していた頃、目の前に15歳の少年が現われた。少年のサックス演奏を聞いて彼は「この世には努力しても及ばない天才がいる」と感じたそうだ。その少年は後に「ジャズの神様」になった。「ジャズの神様」になりそこねた音大生は「経済の神様」になった。ただ、彼には「疫病神」との批判もある。本書はその「神もしくは疫病神」のメモワールである。面白くないわけがない。英文で500頁に及ぶ本書を読み終えた感想は、「とてつもない人の書いたとてつもない話」である。「経済の神様」としてのアメリカ経済、グローバル経済全体へのわかりやすいが極めて高度な解説に加え、アメリカを代表する2人の女性キャスターとの華麗なる交際と結婚、麻生「ローゼン閣下」顔負けの「野球オタク」ぶりなど「神様」らしからぬエピソードも満載された本書は、「高橋是清自伝」と「ケインズの一般理論」を合わせたような魅力を持っている。
仮に後世の史家が彼を「疫病神」と名付けたとしても本書の価値は褪せることはないだろう。
仮に後世の史家が彼を「疫病神」と名付けたとしても本書の価値は褪せることはないだろう。
2007年10月5日に日本でレビュー済み
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「経済とは」の視点から、長めの日曜版の記事のような平易さで、米国を中心とした世界経済と、政治の関連性を、豊富な語彙とエピソードでわかりやすく紹介しています。 経済ってこんなに政治と類義語だったの?と、目からうろこの絶対お勧め本です。 面白い。
2009年4月18日に日本でレビュー済み
もっと専門用語が多いかと思いましたが、シンプルな単語や文体ですっきりと書かれています。そのため、そのまま引用できる文章がいっぱいです。また、20代のころの経済情勢
から引退までの世界経済情勢に強くなります。今後の経済の予測もあり、その理由も書かれています。もちろん日本についても書かれています。アメリカから見た日本の印象や、日本がはたした役割も書かれています。
アメリカの大統領との仕事の話が多く、アメリカ現代政治にも強くなります。
しかし、語りくちは結構軽いです。最初の数ページは、映画のような感じで進みますし、理論的な数値の出てこない私的な話題や行動は、かなり口語的表現。でも、上品な口語。
もっと経済や政治に興味がでます。
から引退までの世界経済情勢に強くなります。今後の経済の予測もあり、その理由も書かれています。もちろん日本についても書かれています。アメリカから見た日本の印象や、日本がはたした役割も書かれています。
アメリカの大統領との仕事の話が多く、アメリカ現代政治にも強くなります。
しかし、語りくちは結構軽いです。最初の数ページは、映画のような感じで進みますし、理論的な数値の出てこない私的な話題や行動は、かなり口語的表現。でも、上品な口語。
もっと経済や政治に興味がでます。
他の国からのトップレビュー
Peter de Toma sen.
5つ星のうち5.0
Very important historic document
2016年10月14日にドイツでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
I have studied this book “with a new chapter on the current credit crisis.”
Originally the book went to press in June 2007, this updated edition went to press in June 2008, three months before Lehman went bankrupt on September 15th, 2008.
Before, I have studied 15 books written by various experts – two journalists (Walter Bagehot), economists and policy makers. The last one before “The Age of Turbulence” was “The Courage to Act” by Ben Bernanke, the successor of Alan Greenspan.
This book is a must read for those interested in the subject of financial crises in general and the financial crisis 2007/2008 which is still affecting the European Union as well as Europe as a whole.
Alan Greespan’s remarkable personality and career, his responsibilities and insights into economic affairs of the USA and far beyond, his working experiences with seven US Presidents – Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sen., Clinton and Bush Jr., - as well as with top ranks all over the world, his view as an economist and chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank provide very interesting and revealing details of an incomparable VIP.
It is very advantageous that we can read Alan Greenspan’s book finished in June 2007 (Introduction, Chapters 1-25) and twelve months later when he added his “Epilogue” (Pages 507-532) which went to press in June 2008.
In this new chapter – the “Epilogue” - Greenspan covers the beginning of the financial crisis: "On Thursday, August 9, 2007, the French bank BNP Paribas suspended trading in three of its mutual funds, saying it could no longer value the funds’ assets because the market for them had evaporated. Within hours, short-term credit markets around the world had virtually seized.” (P. 507). This event was followed by “the first run on a British bank since Victorian times” when “savings customers of Northern Rock “gathered outside branches from Dublin to Brighton … to withdraw their nest eggs. (P.514).
Greenspan commented the following collapse and bailout of Bearn Stearns in March 2007 as follows: “Such government bailouts must be extremely rare …” (P. 526).
Thus, we can compare his view just before the beginning of the financial crisis – he was chairman of the Federal Reserve board until January 2006 – with his view of the sudden and surprising upheavals following his tenure.
Obviously he had no clue of what would follow three months after his updated edition.
“On September 7, 2008, Fannie and Freddie clearly were insolvent;
On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy;
On September 15, 2008, Merrill Lynch, another big broker-dealer, was acquired by the Bank of America, basically saving the firm from potential collapse;
On September 16, 2008, AIG, the largest multidimensional insurance company in the world, came under enormous attack from people demanding cash;
On September 25, 2008, Washington Mutual, one of the biggest thrift companies, was closed;
On October 3, 2008, Wachovia, one of the five biggest banks in the U.S. came under serious pressure and was acquired by Wells Fargo, another large mortgage provider. …
All the firms I am talking about were among the top ten or fifteen financial firms in the United States, and similar things were happening in Europe.” (Quoted from “The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis” by Ben Bernanke, published in 2013, P.72ff.).
For many reasons this book is a historic document provided by one of the top economists, policy makers and executives in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century completed at the right time just before the economic world changed significantly.
It helps to imagine and speculate how Greenspan would have behaved during the financial crisis 2007/2008 and compare his view with Ben Bernanke’s term as chairman of the Federal Reserve board between February 2006 and February 2014.
Below you find some original quotes selected from Greenspan’s book that should inspire to read it; my comments are marked MC.
“On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, I was flying back to Washington on Swissair Flight 128, returning home from a routine international bankers’ meeting in Switzerland. (P.1.)
It’s the psychology that leads to panics and recessions. … They offered to show videos of the Twin Towers coming down and the fires at the Pentagon, but I declined. I’d worked in the neighborhood of the World Trade Center for much of my life and had friends and acquaintances there. (P.3)
But to this day, I feel ill at ease in the spotlight. Extrovert, I am not. (P.9)
My early training was to immerse myself in extensive detail in the workings of some small part of the world and infer from that detail the way that segment of the world behaves. That is the process I have applied throughout my career. (P.37)
Objectivism championed laissez-faire capitalism as the ideal form of social organization; not surprisingly, Ayn Rand abhorred Soviet communism, in which she had been schooled. She saw it as the embodiment of brutal collectivism. And at the height of Soviet power, she held that the system was so inherently corrupt that eventually it would collapse from within. (P.40)
Rand persuaded me to look at human beings, their values, how they work, what they do and why they do it, and how they think and why they think. This broadened my horizons far beyond the models of economics I’d learned. I began to study how societies form and how cultures behave, and to realize that economics and forecasting depend on such knowledge – different cultures grow and create material wealth in profoundly different ways. All of this started for me with Ayn Rand. (P.53)
As chairman I was an unusual choice, because I didn’t yet have a Ph.D. and because I looked at the economy differently from most academicians. (P.64)
The job seemed amorphous, the type of task in which it is very easy to be wrong even if you have virtually full knowledge. Forecasting a complex economy such as ours is not a ninety-ten proposition. You’re very fortunate if you can do sixty-forty. All the same, the challenge was too great to turn down. I told the Bakers that if the job were offered, I would accept. (P.99)
The Fed chairman has less unilateral power than the title might suggest. By statute I controlled only the agenda for the Board of Governors meetings – the Board decided all other matters by majority rule, and the chairman was just one vote among seven. Also, I was not automatically the chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the powerful group that controls the federal funds rate, the primary lever of U.S. monetary policy. … While the Board chairman is traditionally the chair of the FOMC, he or she must be elected each year by the members, and they are free to choose someone else. I expected precedent to prevail. But I was always aware that a revolt of the six other governors could remove all of my authority, except writing the Board agendas. (P.101)
The Federal Reserve and the White House are not automatically allies. In giving the Fed its modern mandate in 1935, Congress took great care to shield it from the influence of the political process. (P.110)
I was saddened years later when I discovered that President Bush blamed me for his loss. “I reappointed him and he disappointed me,” he told a television interviewer in 1998.
His bitterness surprised me, I did not feel the same way about him. His loss in the election reminded me of how voters in Britain had ousted Winston Churchill immediately after the Second World War. As best I could judge, Bush had done an exemplary job on the most important issues confronting the United States, our confrontation with the Soviet Union and the crisis in the Middle East. If a president can earn reelection, he did. But then, so did Winston Churchill. (P.122)
Just four weeks later, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. (P.130)
Controlled experiments almost never happen in economics. But you could not have created a better one than East and West Germany, even if you’d done it in a lab. (P.131)
The fall of the wall exposed a degree of economic decay so devastating that it astonished even the skeptics. The East German workforce, it turned out, had little more than one-third the productivity of its western counterpart, nothing like 75 percent to 85 percent. The same applied to the population’s standard of living. (P.132)
“I fear that if we act today, our move may be the one we turn out to regret,” said Janet Yellen, a governor who would later become chairman of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors. She was the most vocal advocate for shifting to a stance of wait and see. (P.156)
August 9, 1995, will go down in history as the day the dot-com boom was born. (P.164)
We generally did not talk about the stock market very much at the Fed. (P.165)
This wasn’t quite OK Corral, but there was plenty of friction. The Treasury and the comptroller’s staff felt that all the regulatory authority should belong to them, and the Fed staff felt the same. (P.199)
Even if the Fed were to decide there was a stock bubble and we wanted to let the air out of it, would we be able to? I wondered. We had tried and failed. (P.200)
We’d be killing the patient to cure the disease.
After thinking a great deal about this, I decided that the best the Fed could do would be to stay with our central goal of stabilizing product and service prices. (P.201)
I’d come to realize we’d never be able to identify irrational exuberance with certainty, much less act on it, until after the fact. (P.202)
My first meeting with President-elect Bush took place on December 18, 2000, less than a week after the Supreme Court decision that enabled him to claim his election victory.
The deflation of the tech-stock bubble had been the great financial drama of the preceding months. The NASDAQ lost a stunning 50 percent of its value between March and year-end. (P.206)
Recessions are tricky to forecast because they are driven in part by nonrational behavior. (P.212)
The post-9/11 recovery had a dark side, however. It was marred by a disturbing shift in the concentration of income.
Two-tier economies are common in developing countries, but not since the 1920s have Americans experienced such an inequality of income. (P.232)
To my mind, Bush’s collaborate-don’t-confront approach was a major mistake – it cost the nation a check-and-balance mechanism essential to fiscal discipline. (P.235)
The budget discipline that had served us so well was effectively dead. (P.236)
“Deficits don’t matter,” to my chagrin, became part of Republicans rhetoric. (P.237)
Armey had it exactly right. The Republican Congress lost their way. They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose. (P.244)
While the debate over property rights and democracy will doubtless persist, I was taken with an observation made by Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner in economics; “In the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look.” (P.253)
It is striking to me that our ideas about the efficacy of market competition have remained essentially unchanged since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, when they first emerged, to a remarkable extent, largely from the mind of one man, Adam Smith.
Born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 1723, Smith lived in an era influenced by the ideas and events of the Reformation. For the first time in history of Western civilization, individuals began to view themselves as able to act independently of ecclesiastic and state restraint. (P.260)
He offered the first comprehensive examination of why some countries are able to achieve high standards of living while others make little progress.(P.261)
A recent poll shows that 71 percent of Americans agree that the free-market system is the best economic system available. Only 36 percent of the French agree. Another poll indicates that three-fourths of young French men and women aspire to a job in government. Few young Americans express that preference. (P.273)
I do not doubt that the Marshall Plan helped, but it was too small to account for the remarkable dynamics of the postwar recovery. I would regard the freeing of product and financial markets in 1948 by West German economics director Ludwig Erhard as by far the more important spur to the postwar recovery of Western Europe. (P.281)
Most French reject market competition, the very basis on which capitalist economies function. It is views as uncivil, or the “law of the jungle,” in the words of Balladur. Yet they protect the institutions of capitalism – the rule of law and especially property rights – as well as any other developed nation. (P.287)
Karl Marx was wrong in his analysis of the way people can organize to successfully create value. (P.300)
What is remarkable in all this is that it took so long for Illarionov to be demoted. Eventually he was relieved of his role as presidential representative to the G8 heads of government, and in 2005 he resigned, stating that Russia was no longer a free country. (P.325)
Populism tied to individual rights is what most people call liberal democracy. “Economic populism” as used by most economists, however, refers implicitly to a democracy in which the “individual rights” qualifier is largely missing. Unqualified democracy, where 51 percent of the people can legally do away with the rights of the remaining 49 percent, leads to tyranny.” (P.344)
MC: The UK Brexit vote – 51.9% pro Brexit, leaving the European Union – without the involvement of the Parliament is a very strong warning in context with Greenspan’s observation.
“A recent financial innovation of major importance has been the credit default swap.” (P.371)
MC: Credit default swaps (CDS) brought AIG to its knees, contributed significantly to the financial crisis 2007/2008 and required the public bailout of AIG.
“I had long argued that the Glass-Steagall Act, which in 1933 separated the business of securities underwriting from commercial banking, was based on faulty history.” (P.375)
MC: According to some commentators, this deregulation in the last phase of the Clinton government contributed to the financial crisis 2007/2008. Ben Bernanke in his excellent book “The Courage to Act” published in 2015 does not agree and explains why the deregulation “helped stabilize the two endangered investment banks.” (P.439)
“In my experience, another significant factor in excess CEO compensation occurs as a result of a general rise in stock prices, over with the average CEO has no control. (P.426)
I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.
Until industrial economies disengage themselves from, as President George W. Bush put it, “our addiction to oil,” the stability of the industrial economies and hence the global economy will remain at risk. (P.463)
As this book goes to press (June 2007), evidence of a rebound in measured productivity growth or the rate of price decline for high-tech equipment is lacking. But history tells us that such a turn will take place. It always has. (P.473)
I regret to say that Federal Reserve independence is not set in stone. FOMC discretion is granted by statute and can be withdrawn by statute. (P.478)
I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s perception of Americans, who “can always be counted on to do the right thing – after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” (P.483)
Markets have become too huge, complex, and fast-moving to be subject to twentieth-century supervision and regulation.
Financial regulators are required to oversee a system far more complex than what existed when the regulations still governing financial markets were originally written.
Regulation, by its nature, inhibits freedom of market action, and that freedom to act expeditiously is what rebalances markets. (P.489)
Undermine this freedom and the whole market-balancing process is put at risk.
In today’s world, I fail to see how adding more government regulation can help. (P.490)
We have no sensible choice other than to let markets work. (P.492)
The elaborate counterparty surveillance procedures of bank loan officers have long been the financial system’s first line of defense against breakdowns. Yet there is persuasive evidence that in this crisis, those in charge of counterparty surveillance have failed. (P.524)
If history is any guide, new regulations will focus mainly on the causes of the current crisis: lax and fraudulent mortgage lending practices, the indiscriminate securitization of credit products, and over-reliance on risky short term funding for long term assets. (P.525)
The only alternative would be for commercial banks to hold significantly more capital all the time at levels that might be needed only once every one hundred years. Bankers strongly resist that approach; apparently they prefer to risk bankruptcy once a century.
No one knows for sure, of course, but the evidence is quite persuasive that the current crisis is one of those rare, once in a century or half century events. (P.526)
Our country has long since abandoned the notion that we should leave crises to be resolved solely by the marketplace.
We need laws that specify and limit the conditions for bailouts – laws that authorize the Treasury to use taxpayer money to counter systemic financial breakdowns transparently and directly rather than circuitously through the central bank, as was done during the blow-up of Bear Stearns. (P.527)
If material well-being is our goal, I see no alternative to global market capitalism. Its Achilles’ heel is the widespread perception that its rewards are not justly distributed. That issue, as I have argued in chapter 21, sorely needs to be addressed. (P.529)
Peter Petre has been my collaborator in the writing.” (P.535)
MC: On the frontispiece of “Father SON & CO. – My Life at IBM and Beyond” published in 1990 you find Thomas J. Watson Jr. AND Peter Petre as the authors.
Originally the book went to press in June 2007, this updated edition went to press in June 2008, three months before Lehman went bankrupt on September 15th, 2008.
Before, I have studied 15 books written by various experts – two journalists (Walter Bagehot), economists and policy makers. The last one before “The Age of Turbulence” was “The Courage to Act” by Ben Bernanke, the successor of Alan Greenspan.
This book is a must read for those interested in the subject of financial crises in general and the financial crisis 2007/2008 which is still affecting the European Union as well as Europe as a whole.
Alan Greespan’s remarkable personality and career, his responsibilities and insights into economic affairs of the USA and far beyond, his working experiences with seven US Presidents – Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sen., Clinton and Bush Jr., - as well as with top ranks all over the world, his view as an economist and chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank provide very interesting and revealing details of an incomparable VIP.
It is very advantageous that we can read Alan Greenspan’s book finished in June 2007 (Introduction, Chapters 1-25) and twelve months later when he added his “Epilogue” (Pages 507-532) which went to press in June 2008.
In this new chapter – the “Epilogue” - Greenspan covers the beginning of the financial crisis: "On Thursday, August 9, 2007, the French bank BNP Paribas suspended trading in three of its mutual funds, saying it could no longer value the funds’ assets because the market for them had evaporated. Within hours, short-term credit markets around the world had virtually seized.” (P. 507). This event was followed by “the first run on a British bank since Victorian times” when “savings customers of Northern Rock “gathered outside branches from Dublin to Brighton … to withdraw their nest eggs. (P.514).
Greenspan commented the following collapse and bailout of Bearn Stearns in March 2007 as follows: “Such government bailouts must be extremely rare …” (P. 526).
Thus, we can compare his view just before the beginning of the financial crisis – he was chairman of the Federal Reserve board until January 2006 – with his view of the sudden and surprising upheavals following his tenure.
Obviously he had no clue of what would follow three months after his updated edition.
“On September 7, 2008, Fannie and Freddie clearly were insolvent;
On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy;
On September 15, 2008, Merrill Lynch, another big broker-dealer, was acquired by the Bank of America, basically saving the firm from potential collapse;
On September 16, 2008, AIG, the largest multidimensional insurance company in the world, came under enormous attack from people demanding cash;
On September 25, 2008, Washington Mutual, one of the biggest thrift companies, was closed;
On October 3, 2008, Wachovia, one of the five biggest banks in the U.S. came under serious pressure and was acquired by Wells Fargo, another large mortgage provider. …
All the firms I am talking about were among the top ten or fifteen financial firms in the United States, and similar things were happening in Europe.” (Quoted from “The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis” by Ben Bernanke, published in 2013, P.72ff.).
For many reasons this book is a historic document provided by one of the top economists, policy makers and executives in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century completed at the right time just before the economic world changed significantly.
It helps to imagine and speculate how Greenspan would have behaved during the financial crisis 2007/2008 and compare his view with Ben Bernanke’s term as chairman of the Federal Reserve board between February 2006 and February 2014.
Below you find some original quotes selected from Greenspan’s book that should inspire to read it; my comments are marked MC.
“On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, I was flying back to Washington on Swissair Flight 128, returning home from a routine international bankers’ meeting in Switzerland. (P.1.)
It’s the psychology that leads to panics and recessions. … They offered to show videos of the Twin Towers coming down and the fires at the Pentagon, but I declined. I’d worked in the neighborhood of the World Trade Center for much of my life and had friends and acquaintances there. (P.3)
But to this day, I feel ill at ease in the spotlight. Extrovert, I am not. (P.9)
My early training was to immerse myself in extensive detail in the workings of some small part of the world and infer from that detail the way that segment of the world behaves. That is the process I have applied throughout my career. (P.37)
Objectivism championed laissez-faire capitalism as the ideal form of social organization; not surprisingly, Ayn Rand abhorred Soviet communism, in which she had been schooled. She saw it as the embodiment of brutal collectivism. And at the height of Soviet power, she held that the system was so inherently corrupt that eventually it would collapse from within. (P.40)
Rand persuaded me to look at human beings, their values, how they work, what they do and why they do it, and how they think and why they think. This broadened my horizons far beyond the models of economics I’d learned. I began to study how societies form and how cultures behave, and to realize that economics and forecasting depend on such knowledge – different cultures grow and create material wealth in profoundly different ways. All of this started for me with Ayn Rand. (P.53)
As chairman I was an unusual choice, because I didn’t yet have a Ph.D. and because I looked at the economy differently from most academicians. (P.64)
The job seemed amorphous, the type of task in which it is very easy to be wrong even if you have virtually full knowledge. Forecasting a complex economy such as ours is not a ninety-ten proposition. You’re very fortunate if you can do sixty-forty. All the same, the challenge was too great to turn down. I told the Bakers that if the job were offered, I would accept. (P.99)
The Fed chairman has less unilateral power than the title might suggest. By statute I controlled only the agenda for the Board of Governors meetings – the Board decided all other matters by majority rule, and the chairman was just one vote among seven. Also, I was not automatically the chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the powerful group that controls the federal funds rate, the primary lever of U.S. monetary policy. … While the Board chairman is traditionally the chair of the FOMC, he or she must be elected each year by the members, and they are free to choose someone else. I expected precedent to prevail. But I was always aware that a revolt of the six other governors could remove all of my authority, except writing the Board agendas. (P.101)
The Federal Reserve and the White House are not automatically allies. In giving the Fed its modern mandate in 1935, Congress took great care to shield it from the influence of the political process. (P.110)
I was saddened years later when I discovered that President Bush blamed me for his loss. “I reappointed him and he disappointed me,” he told a television interviewer in 1998.
His bitterness surprised me, I did not feel the same way about him. His loss in the election reminded me of how voters in Britain had ousted Winston Churchill immediately after the Second World War. As best I could judge, Bush had done an exemplary job on the most important issues confronting the United States, our confrontation with the Soviet Union and the crisis in the Middle East. If a president can earn reelection, he did. But then, so did Winston Churchill. (P.122)
Just four weeks later, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. (P.130)
Controlled experiments almost never happen in economics. But you could not have created a better one than East and West Germany, even if you’d done it in a lab. (P.131)
The fall of the wall exposed a degree of economic decay so devastating that it astonished even the skeptics. The East German workforce, it turned out, had little more than one-third the productivity of its western counterpart, nothing like 75 percent to 85 percent. The same applied to the population’s standard of living. (P.132)
“I fear that if we act today, our move may be the one we turn out to regret,” said Janet Yellen, a governor who would later become chairman of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors. She was the most vocal advocate for shifting to a stance of wait and see. (P.156)
August 9, 1995, will go down in history as the day the dot-com boom was born. (P.164)
We generally did not talk about the stock market very much at the Fed. (P.165)
This wasn’t quite OK Corral, but there was plenty of friction. The Treasury and the comptroller’s staff felt that all the regulatory authority should belong to them, and the Fed staff felt the same. (P.199)
Even if the Fed were to decide there was a stock bubble and we wanted to let the air out of it, would we be able to? I wondered. We had tried and failed. (P.200)
We’d be killing the patient to cure the disease.
After thinking a great deal about this, I decided that the best the Fed could do would be to stay with our central goal of stabilizing product and service prices. (P.201)
I’d come to realize we’d never be able to identify irrational exuberance with certainty, much less act on it, until after the fact. (P.202)
My first meeting with President-elect Bush took place on December 18, 2000, less than a week after the Supreme Court decision that enabled him to claim his election victory.
The deflation of the tech-stock bubble had been the great financial drama of the preceding months. The NASDAQ lost a stunning 50 percent of its value between March and year-end. (P.206)
Recessions are tricky to forecast because they are driven in part by nonrational behavior. (P.212)
The post-9/11 recovery had a dark side, however. It was marred by a disturbing shift in the concentration of income.
Two-tier economies are common in developing countries, but not since the 1920s have Americans experienced such an inequality of income. (P.232)
To my mind, Bush’s collaborate-don’t-confront approach was a major mistake – it cost the nation a check-and-balance mechanism essential to fiscal discipline. (P.235)
The budget discipline that had served us so well was effectively dead. (P.236)
“Deficits don’t matter,” to my chagrin, became part of Republicans rhetoric. (P.237)
Armey had it exactly right. The Republican Congress lost their way. They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose. (P.244)
While the debate over property rights and democracy will doubtless persist, I was taken with an observation made by Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner in economics; “In the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look.” (P.253)
It is striking to me that our ideas about the efficacy of market competition have remained essentially unchanged since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, when they first emerged, to a remarkable extent, largely from the mind of one man, Adam Smith.
Born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 1723, Smith lived in an era influenced by the ideas and events of the Reformation. For the first time in history of Western civilization, individuals began to view themselves as able to act independently of ecclesiastic and state restraint. (P.260)
He offered the first comprehensive examination of why some countries are able to achieve high standards of living while others make little progress.(P.261)
A recent poll shows that 71 percent of Americans agree that the free-market system is the best economic system available. Only 36 percent of the French agree. Another poll indicates that three-fourths of young French men and women aspire to a job in government. Few young Americans express that preference. (P.273)
I do not doubt that the Marshall Plan helped, but it was too small to account for the remarkable dynamics of the postwar recovery. I would regard the freeing of product and financial markets in 1948 by West German economics director Ludwig Erhard as by far the more important spur to the postwar recovery of Western Europe. (P.281)
Most French reject market competition, the very basis on which capitalist economies function. It is views as uncivil, or the “law of the jungle,” in the words of Balladur. Yet they protect the institutions of capitalism – the rule of law and especially property rights – as well as any other developed nation. (P.287)
Karl Marx was wrong in his analysis of the way people can organize to successfully create value. (P.300)
What is remarkable in all this is that it took so long for Illarionov to be demoted. Eventually he was relieved of his role as presidential representative to the G8 heads of government, and in 2005 he resigned, stating that Russia was no longer a free country. (P.325)
Populism tied to individual rights is what most people call liberal democracy. “Economic populism” as used by most economists, however, refers implicitly to a democracy in which the “individual rights” qualifier is largely missing. Unqualified democracy, where 51 percent of the people can legally do away with the rights of the remaining 49 percent, leads to tyranny.” (P.344)
MC: The UK Brexit vote – 51.9% pro Brexit, leaving the European Union – without the involvement of the Parliament is a very strong warning in context with Greenspan’s observation.
“A recent financial innovation of major importance has been the credit default swap.” (P.371)
MC: Credit default swaps (CDS) brought AIG to its knees, contributed significantly to the financial crisis 2007/2008 and required the public bailout of AIG.
“I had long argued that the Glass-Steagall Act, which in 1933 separated the business of securities underwriting from commercial banking, was based on faulty history.” (P.375)
MC: According to some commentators, this deregulation in the last phase of the Clinton government contributed to the financial crisis 2007/2008. Ben Bernanke in his excellent book “The Courage to Act” published in 2015 does not agree and explains why the deregulation “helped stabilize the two endangered investment banks.” (P.439)
“In my experience, another significant factor in excess CEO compensation occurs as a result of a general rise in stock prices, over with the average CEO has no control. (P.426)
I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.
Until industrial economies disengage themselves from, as President George W. Bush put it, “our addiction to oil,” the stability of the industrial economies and hence the global economy will remain at risk. (P.463)
As this book goes to press (June 2007), evidence of a rebound in measured productivity growth or the rate of price decline for high-tech equipment is lacking. But history tells us that such a turn will take place. It always has. (P.473)
I regret to say that Federal Reserve independence is not set in stone. FOMC discretion is granted by statute and can be withdrawn by statute. (P.478)
I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s perception of Americans, who “can always be counted on to do the right thing – after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” (P.483)
Markets have become too huge, complex, and fast-moving to be subject to twentieth-century supervision and regulation.
Financial regulators are required to oversee a system far more complex than what existed when the regulations still governing financial markets were originally written.
Regulation, by its nature, inhibits freedom of market action, and that freedom to act expeditiously is what rebalances markets. (P.489)
Undermine this freedom and the whole market-balancing process is put at risk.
In today’s world, I fail to see how adding more government regulation can help. (P.490)
We have no sensible choice other than to let markets work. (P.492)
The elaborate counterparty surveillance procedures of bank loan officers have long been the financial system’s first line of defense against breakdowns. Yet there is persuasive evidence that in this crisis, those in charge of counterparty surveillance have failed. (P.524)
If history is any guide, new regulations will focus mainly on the causes of the current crisis: lax and fraudulent mortgage lending practices, the indiscriminate securitization of credit products, and over-reliance on risky short term funding for long term assets. (P.525)
The only alternative would be for commercial banks to hold significantly more capital all the time at levels that might be needed only once every one hundred years. Bankers strongly resist that approach; apparently they prefer to risk bankruptcy once a century.
No one knows for sure, of course, but the evidence is quite persuasive that the current crisis is one of those rare, once in a century or half century events. (P.526)
Our country has long since abandoned the notion that we should leave crises to be resolved solely by the marketplace.
We need laws that specify and limit the conditions for bailouts – laws that authorize the Treasury to use taxpayer money to counter systemic financial breakdowns transparently and directly rather than circuitously through the central bank, as was done during the blow-up of Bear Stearns. (P.527)
If material well-being is our goal, I see no alternative to global market capitalism. Its Achilles’ heel is the widespread perception that its rewards are not justly distributed. That issue, as I have argued in chapter 21, sorely needs to be addressed. (P.529)
Peter Petre has been my collaborator in the writing.” (P.535)
MC: On the frontispiece of “Father SON & CO. – My Life at IBM and Beyond” published in 1990 you find Thomas J. Watson Jr. AND Peter Petre as the authors.
Abacus
5つ星のうち5.0
Encyclopedic first hand account of economic history.
2009年3月19日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
This book is so interesting. During his near 20 year tenure as Chairman of the Fed, we did not know what he thought. Now, we do. Instead of speaking through his cryptic Fed-speak, he expresses himself in clear prose. His mind set (free markets and deregulation) seems now antiquated. But, it will return in favor. This is the best finance type autobiography since Robert Rubin
In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington
.
This book has four parts:
1) An autobiography;
2) An outlook of major countries;
3) Investigation of crucial economic issues such as rising income inequality; and
4) An economic forecast till 2030.
Greenspan is an original individual who has lived a full life. He was a professional musician. But he soon developed a yearning for data. He was influenced by Ayn Rand objectivism and by Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction." In 1953, he co-founds a succesful economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan (TG). He becomes an early expert in econometrics modeling, and gets a PhD in economics from NYU in the late seventies.
Greenspan met all the Presidents since Nixon. He thought Nixon was very smart but paranoia. He liked Ford and thought he was much smarter than the Media conveyed. He had no relationship with Carter. He liked Reagan, as they shared a free-market philosophy even though they were different. Reagan was the master of the soundbite while Greenspan is a technocrat. In 1981, Reagan appoints Greenspan to chair the Greenspan Commission to shore up Social Security. This was a success of bipartisan politics as in 1983, the Social Security program was shored up and deemed to remain solvent until 2050. He had a cold relationship with George Bush Sr. as the latter felt monetary policy was too tight and ultimately cost him an election.
He had a great relationship with Clinton. Both men played the sax. Greenspan also got along with Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary, and Lawrence Summers, Assistant Treasury Secretary. The three will engineer the successful 1994 Mexican loan bail out. The Bush Jr. administration turned out differently from the reincarnation of the Ford administration. Now politics dominated pragmatism. Partisanship made governance dysfunctional.
Greenspan met many foreign leaders including Yeltsin. He thought he was smart and when sober. He also met British leaders including Thatcher, Blair, and Brown. He was very impressed by Thatcher and Brown. He met Sarkozy when he was finance minister just before becoming France's President.
His objective as Fed Chairman was "maximum sustainable long-term growth and employment." Greenspan explains why pricking stock market bubbles is risky: "The risk in clamping down during a stock-market surge is especially acute-it can pop the bubble of investor confidence, and ... can trigger a severe economic contraction." Later he explained how he developed an alternative: raising rates by only 25 bp more frequently to preempt inflation.
Greenspan notices the onset of the housing bubble in the rapid home price appreciation since 2002. He attempts to slow it down by increasing the Fed Funds rate by 350 bp between the end of 2003 and beginning of 2006, when he retires. In 2006, 40% of home mortgages were either Subprime or Alt-A. Those will be associated with the credit crisis. The latter was more due to credit underwriting than monetary policy.
In the next part, Greenspan analyzes the economic status of the World's countries. This part compares evenly with David Smick's The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy and Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World . He sees the EU as the archetype slow-growth welfare state-capitalism.
He states Japan suffered two decades of stagnation because of its inability to resolve their insolvent banks. China is a perplexing mixture of communism and market capitalism. He thinks it will become more democratic and its economic system will resemble Europe. This is after China improves its inefficient banking system. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore all fully recovered from the Asian currency crisis of 1997. And, they moved up the curve to exporting increasingly sophisticated goods.
India has to overcome huge handicaps. Only 1.5 million Indians are employed in the outsourcing information sector. 2/5th of its population is illiterate. 250 million Indians still live on less than a $1 a day. Half of India's homes have no electricity. The infrastructure is decripit. The electricity grid is inadequate. Labor laws, property rights, and bureaucracy are not supportive of market capitalism.
Moving on to Russia, he observes Putin's effort to fully control its governance and economy. Russia economy has succeeded solely due to rising energy prices as its economy is not diversified.
In the third part, moving on to complex issues he first addresses the U.S. Current Account Deficit (CAD). He states the CAD is due to the U.S. rising productivity and a decline in foreign investors risk premium when investing in the U.S. Those factors caused the U.S. to run huge net capital inflows which by definition equal CADs. This subject is well covered in Martin Wolf Fixing Global Finance (Forum on Constructive Capitalism) . Moving on to globalization, Greenspan confirms Smick's analysis in "The World is Curved." Globalization has increased living standards worldwide. But, it is vulnerable to backlashes of populism, protectionism, and regulations.
Next, Greenspan explains the "conundrum" whereby the Fed does not control long term rates by manipulating Fed Funds. They respond instead to the huge inflow of funds (capital surplus associated with the CAD).
The rising income inequality in the U.S. is due to a shortage of highly skilled labor. He recommends increasing immigration of the highly skilled and increasing the pay of math school teacher to boost the supply of the highly skilled.
Addressing the fiscal liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, he confirms the findings of Kotlikoff in The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future . Those programs are not sustainable as currently funded. Taxes will have to be increased; benefits will have to be curtailed or a combination of both.
Addressing long-term energy prospect, he states: "none of the tight balance between supply and demand is due to any shortage of oil in the ground. The problem is that ... those who would like to invest (private sector international companies) cannot find profitable investments, and those who can invest (national companies) choose not to." Thus, there is no shortage of oil reserves but shortages of production and refining capacity. He anticipates nuclear energy will emerge as the scalable clean energy source. He also concurs with Bryce Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of "Energy Independence" that energy independence is a Utopian political construct. We will rely on oil as long as we can.
Regarding the 2030 forecast, Greenspan sees the U.S. economy growing at 2.5% p.a. (2% productivity; 0.5% growth in labor force). He anticipates long term rates to increase due to the high fiscal needs worldwide to finance social entitlements (retirement and health care benefits). Read also Global Aging and Financial Markets: Hard Landings Ahead (CSIS Significant Issues Series) (Csis Significant Issues Series) on the subject.
This book has four parts:
1) An autobiography;
2) An outlook of major countries;
3) Investigation of crucial economic issues such as rising income inequality; and
4) An economic forecast till 2030.
Greenspan is an original individual who has lived a full life. He was a professional musician. But he soon developed a yearning for data. He was influenced by Ayn Rand objectivism and by Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction." In 1953, he co-founds a succesful economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan (TG). He becomes an early expert in econometrics modeling, and gets a PhD in economics from NYU in the late seventies.
Greenspan met all the Presidents since Nixon. He thought Nixon was very smart but paranoia. He liked Ford and thought he was much smarter than the Media conveyed. He had no relationship with Carter. He liked Reagan, as they shared a free-market philosophy even though they were different. Reagan was the master of the soundbite while Greenspan is a technocrat. In 1981, Reagan appoints Greenspan to chair the Greenspan Commission to shore up Social Security. This was a success of bipartisan politics as in 1983, the Social Security program was shored up and deemed to remain solvent until 2050. He had a cold relationship with George Bush Sr. as the latter felt monetary policy was too tight and ultimately cost him an election.
He had a great relationship with Clinton. Both men played the sax. Greenspan also got along with Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary, and Lawrence Summers, Assistant Treasury Secretary. The three will engineer the successful 1994 Mexican loan bail out. The Bush Jr. administration turned out differently from the reincarnation of the Ford administration. Now politics dominated pragmatism. Partisanship made governance dysfunctional.
Greenspan met many foreign leaders including Yeltsin. He thought he was smart and when sober. He also met British leaders including Thatcher, Blair, and Brown. He was very impressed by Thatcher and Brown. He met Sarkozy when he was finance minister just before becoming France's President.
His objective as Fed Chairman was "maximum sustainable long-term growth and employment." Greenspan explains why pricking stock market bubbles is risky: "The risk in clamping down during a stock-market surge is especially acute-it can pop the bubble of investor confidence, and ... can trigger a severe economic contraction." Later he explained how he developed an alternative: raising rates by only 25 bp more frequently to preempt inflation.
Greenspan notices the onset of the housing bubble in the rapid home price appreciation since 2002. He attempts to slow it down by increasing the Fed Funds rate by 350 bp between the end of 2003 and beginning of 2006, when he retires. In 2006, 40% of home mortgages were either Subprime or Alt-A. Those will be associated with the credit crisis. The latter was more due to credit underwriting than monetary policy.
In the next part, Greenspan analyzes the economic status of the World's countries. This part compares evenly with David Smick's The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy and Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World . He sees the EU as the archetype slow-growth welfare state-capitalism.
He states Japan suffered two decades of stagnation because of its inability to resolve their insolvent banks. China is a perplexing mixture of communism and market capitalism. He thinks it will become more democratic and its economic system will resemble Europe. This is after China improves its inefficient banking system. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore all fully recovered from the Asian currency crisis of 1997. And, they moved up the curve to exporting increasingly sophisticated goods.
India has to overcome huge handicaps. Only 1.5 million Indians are employed in the outsourcing information sector. 2/5th of its population is illiterate. 250 million Indians still live on less than a $1 a day. Half of India's homes have no electricity. The infrastructure is decripit. The electricity grid is inadequate. Labor laws, property rights, and bureaucracy are not supportive of market capitalism.
Moving on to Russia, he observes Putin's effort to fully control its governance and economy. Russia economy has succeeded solely due to rising energy prices as its economy is not diversified.
In the third part, moving on to complex issues he first addresses the U.S. Current Account Deficit (CAD). He states the CAD is due to the U.S. rising productivity and a decline in foreign investors risk premium when investing in the U.S. Those factors caused the U.S. to run huge net capital inflows which by definition equal CADs. This subject is well covered in Martin Wolf Fixing Global Finance (Forum on Constructive Capitalism) . Moving on to globalization, Greenspan confirms Smick's analysis in "The World is Curved." Globalization has increased living standards worldwide. But, it is vulnerable to backlashes of populism, protectionism, and regulations.
Next, Greenspan explains the "conundrum" whereby the Fed does not control long term rates by manipulating Fed Funds. They respond instead to the huge inflow of funds (capital surplus associated with the CAD).
The rising income inequality in the U.S. is due to a shortage of highly skilled labor. He recommends increasing immigration of the highly skilled and increasing the pay of math school teacher to boost the supply of the highly skilled.
Addressing the fiscal liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, he confirms the findings of Kotlikoff in The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future . Those programs are not sustainable as currently funded. Taxes will have to be increased; benefits will have to be curtailed or a combination of both.
Addressing long-term energy prospect, he states: "none of the tight balance between supply and demand is due to any shortage of oil in the ground. The problem is that ... those who would like to invest (private sector international companies) cannot find profitable investments, and those who can invest (national companies) choose not to." Thus, there is no shortage of oil reserves but shortages of production and refining capacity. He anticipates nuclear energy will emerge as the scalable clean energy source. He also concurs with Bryce Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of "Energy Independence" that energy independence is a Utopian political construct. We will rely on oil as long as we can.
Regarding the 2030 forecast, Greenspan sees the U.S. economy growing at 2.5% p.a. (2% productivity; 0.5% growth in labor force). He anticipates long term rates to increase due to the high fiscal needs worldwide to finance social entitlements (retirement and health care benefits). Read also Global Aging and Financial Markets: Hard Landings Ahead (CSIS Significant Issues Series) (Csis Significant Issues Series) on the subject.
Serghiou Const
5つ星のうち5.0
A central Banker reminisces, comments on present turbulence and reflects on the future
2007年9月27日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve for almost two decades was at 'the commanding heights' of policy making in the world's most powerful economy. During his tenure the American Economy enjoyed remarkably good health which contributed to the almost iconic status of the author.
Interestingly for a banker, the book is excellent in that it is both intelligently written and pleasantly read. On occasions it is lively and candid. In this regard the author criticises President Bush for not exercising restraint in public spending while asserting that the Iraq war was largely about oil.
The first half of the book comprise reminiscences of the author while in the balance he reflects on the main economic issues which will confront governments in the decades to come.
The author relates America's economic history since the 1950s through his experience in business and in government and at the Federal Reserve Board. He comments on America's Presidents from Nixon to Bush and British Prime Ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair.
Compared to only twenty years ago, the new financial world is turbulent - hence the title of the book - more flexible, resilient, open and fast changing.
Reflecting on the future the author speculates on China's prospects, Russia's prospects, Latin America's prospects, demographics, corporate governance, inequality, energy and the like.
Mr Greenspan has been criticised for not acting pre-emptively by keeping interest rates low for too long and thus precipitating bubbles in the stockmarket and real estate. He acknowledges the criticism but maintains his stance.
This popular book should appeal to a wide readership interested in World Economics
Interestingly for a banker, the book is excellent in that it is both intelligently written and pleasantly read. On occasions it is lively and candid. In this regard the author criticises President Bush for not exercising restraint in public spending while asserting that the Iraq war was largely about oil.
The first half of the book comprise reminiscences of the author while in the balance he reflects on the main economic issues which will confront governments in the decades to come.
The author relates America's economic history since the 1950s through his experience in business and in government and at the Federal Reserve Board. He comments on America's Presidents from Nixon to Bush and British Prime Ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair.
Compared to only twenty years ago, the new financial world is turbulent - hence the title of the book - more flexible, resilient, open and fast changing.
Reflecting on the future the author speculates on China's prospects, Russia's prospects, Latin America's prospects, demographics, corporate governance, inequality, energy and the like.
Mr Greenspan has been criticised for not acting pre-emptively by keeping interest rates low for too long and thus precipitating bubbles in the stockmarket and real estate. He acknowledges the criticism but maintains his stance.
This popular book should appeal to a wide readership interested in World Economics
Suresh Jain
5つ星のうち5.0
Awesome.. highly recommended seller
2018年1月25日にインドでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Awesome..highly recommended seller...Awesome..highly recommended seller...