Rothbard on Greenspan
THE FREE MARKET
Volume 5, Number 8
August 1987
Alan Greenspan: A Minority Report
By Murray N. Rothbard
The press is resounding with acclaim for the accession to Power of Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Fed; economists from right, left, and center weigh in with hosannas for Alan's greatness, acumen, and unparalleled insights into the "numbers." The only reservation seems to be that Alan might not enjoy the enormous power and reverence accorded to his predecessor, for he does not have the height of a basketball player, is not bald, and does not smoke imposing cigars.
The astute observer might feel that anyone accorded such unanimous applause from the Establishment couldn't be all good, and in this case he would be right on the mark. I knew Alan thirty years ago, and have followed his career with interest ever since.
I found particularly remarkable the recent statements in the press that Greenspan's economic consulting firm of Townsend-Greenspan might go under, because it turns out that what the firm really sells is not its econometric forecasting models, or its famous numbers, but Greenspan himself, and his gift for saying absolutely nothing at great length and in rococo syntax with no clearcut position of any kind.
As to his eminence as a forecaster, he ruefully admitted that a pension-fund managing firm he founded a few years ago just folded for lack of ability to apply the forecasting where it counted- when investment funds were on the line.
Greenspan's real qualification is that he can be trusted never to rock the establishment's boat. He has long positioned himself in the very middle of(cont)
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