I would posit that Greenspan doesn't care a whit what history thinks of him.
His general philosophy (rooted in Objectivism) has little to do with ego, but rather managing things responsibly.
Anyone who thinks Greenspan has managed irresponsibly over the last 17 odd years has missed the boat. I don't know how 1 man can be held solely responsible for both the best economy AND the worst. Economies have cycles and his job is to manage them as carefully as he can. He did, too. Hell, he spent 3 years trying to prick the stock market bubble. Unfortunately, it all came to a head at a particularly bad time, what with global uncertainty and all.
Greenspan may not be sharp as a tack today, but he's no worse than anyone else at their peak, either. His key goal, from the day he took office, was price stability. He did a great job of that. I would suggest he continues to do a great job.
Things are neither as bad as people think, nor as good as they'd hope. Sadly, we were spoiled, and when things aren't going as well as when we were spoiled, and we learn that we have to work again, we get angry and talk about "the good old days". Fact is, they weren't so good...just easy. |
