Alan Greenspan Excess Quotations

At the outset of the creation of the euro in 1999, it was expected that the southern eurozone economies would behave like those in the north; the Italians would behave like Germans. They didn't. Instead, northern Europe fell into subsidizing southern Europe's excess consumption, that is, its current account deficits.

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.