Alan Greenspan Numb Quotations

I've heard that if you rig the numbers in the beginning, you won't have to do a recount.

We're going to see some erosion in a number of macroeconomic variables

There is a huge number of people outside our borders who would love to come here. In fact, many of them come here, get well educated, and then are required to leave... This is a factor in income inequality.

The ratio of the number of workers contributing to social security to the number of beneficiaries has declined to the point where maintaining the annuity value of benefits on retirement at a level well in excess of accumulated contributions has become extremely unlikely.

Threats of deflation, which were a significant concern last year, by all indications are no longer an issue before us, ... That clearly is a change that's occurred in the last number of weeks, and it's a change ... that's been long overdue and is most welcome.

The economy is turning, and credit comes in with a lag, ... To the extent that a number of small firms are finding it difficult to get the credit they need at a price they can afford, that's likely to change for the better.

Our judgment is that the level of consumption growth...will slow down, and the dramatic expansion in capital investment will slow down, ... Something will eventually change the pattern, but there are a number of different ways that can happen.

You can't have the capitalist system if an increasing number of people think it is unjust.

The economy is turning, and credit comes in with a lag, .. To the extent that a number of small firms are finding it difficult to get the credit they need at a price they can afford, that's likely to change for the better.

Although the outlook is clouded by a number of uncertainties, the central tendencies of the projections .. imply continued good economic performance in the United States.

The number one problem in today's generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy.

I have gotten calls from a number of senior high-tech executives who are telling me that the market is dissolving rapidly before their eyes. But I suspect that a not inconceivable possibility is that what is dissolving in front of their eyes is their own personal net worth!

People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but that's as far as we go. And I've had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.