Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has always fascinated the financial community. Whatever he says can make or break the markets. He is a highly educated economist with many years of experience. People seek for his advice and obey his judgments. His proclamations are repeated and expounded upon. Greenspan is loved, feared, and never ever questioned. As a result of being a strong chairman of the Fed, he has made a difference the U.S. economy through his way of dealing with inflation. Also, the presidency no longer counterbalances or even criticizes the Fed. First of all, we will consider his background.
Alan Greenspan was born on March 6, 1926, in New York City. He received a B.S. in economics in 1948, an M.A. in economics in 1950, and a Ph.D. in economics in 1977, all from New York University. Also, Dr. Greenspan also has performed advanced graduate study at Columbia University (Board of Governors par. 2) He taught economics at New York University from 1953 to 1955 and formed a consulting firm in 1954 called Townsend-Greenspan & Co., Inc. Dr. Greenspan has received many honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Leuven (Belgium), Notre Dame, Wake Forest, and Colgate universities. Furthermore, he has received numerous awards such as the Thomas Jefferson Award for the Greatest Public Service Performed by an elected or appointed official in1976, and election as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, in1989 (Board of Governors par. 9)
The novelist Ayn Rand influenced Dr. Greenspan. He was deeply influenced by her philosophy of objectivism, which exalts laissez-faire capitalism and promotes “rational selfishness,” the belief that people should live for their own rational self interest. At Rand’s insistence, he became an adviser to Richard Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign. He advised President Nixon informally until he was made chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in 1974 under President Ford. He served during the Ford Administration from 1974 to 1977. During this time, his policies were credited with reducing inflation but leading to recession and may have contributed to Ford’s defeat for reelection (Encarta par 1). From 1981 to 1983 he served as Chairman of the National Commission on Social Security Reform. Other previous presidential appointments include the P...
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... of 1998, only one senator asked him about monetary policy. Everybody else feels like its not his or her place to tell Greenspan how to do his job. (Chait 24) In addition, the hearings are now a way of soliciting Greenspan’s benediction for their own proposals. In this way, Greenspan’s influence goes beyond his nominal powers as Fed chairman.
In conclusion, I believe that Alan Greenspan has made a difference in the U.S. economy. His wisdom and patience have yielded good results with regard to inflation. Also, there is no longer split control over the economy between the Fed, on one hand, and Congress and the President, on the other. Alan Blinder, Greenspan’s former vice chairman said, “He’s become the national economic guru on everything.” (Chait 25)
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William Graham Sumner came from a hard working family. He grew up in the environment where he was taught to respect Protestant economic virtues. Hard work and efficiently utilizing money leads to the result in success. After reading, Illustration of Political Economy written by Harriet Marti he became aware of the wage fund doctrine, and other theories associated with that. His understanding of capital, labor, money and trade were based upon the book, Illustration of Political Economy. He published books like Earth hunger, The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over, The Forgotten Man, Folkways and others. His intellectual ideas were passed through the columns of popular journals and from the lecture platform, he waged a holy war against reformism, protectionism, socialism, and government interventionism.
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