Alan Greenspan Dies at 100: Former US Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan died Monday from complications of Parkinson’s disease, said his wife of 29 years, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell. He was 100.
“To me he was my husband, who shaped my life from our very first date in 1984,” Mitchell said. “He had ‘irrational exuberance’ for baseball, the Washington Commanders, tennis, golf, and music, especially jazz. He will be remembered for his brilliance and his kindness. Being his life partner was the joy of my life.”
Greenspan was so respected during his many years as head of the world’s most influential central bank that by the time he stepped down in 2006, he was widely celebrated as the “Oracle” and “Maestro.”
He presided over a breathtaking surge in stock prices and a 10-year economic boom that began in March 1991. He was widely celebrated as a virtuoso who nurtured America’s economic well-being and whose nearly every utterance was parsed for clues as to where interest rates, the economy and the financial markets might be headed.
The intense scrutiny of Greenspan’s intentions gave birth to new Fed folklore: The “Briefcase Indicator.”
A stuffed briefcase carried into Fed meetings implied changes might be afoot because Greenspan carried with him charts and research to make his point.
“Under his leadership, the Federal Reserve achieved a sustained era of price stability that supported economic growth and helped anchor the public’s confidence in the institution,” the Fed said in a statement Monday. “He brought rigorous analytical discipline to monetary policymaking and helped establish the credibility that remains one of the Federal Reserve’s most important assets.”
Greenspan is known for using monetary policy to launch pre-emptive strikes at inflation but is also criticised for keeping interest rates low during the early 2000s that many think led to the global financial crisis later on in 2007.
During a speech in 1996, Greenspan coined the term “irrational exuberance”, describing a phenomenon when investor enthusiasm drives up asset prices that are devoid of the real economic conditions on the ground.
