Word: greenspans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Even as a saxophone player in a 1940s swing band, Alan Greenspan had a passion for staying in control. While some of his fellow musicians smoked marijuana or snorted stronger drugs, the future chairman of the Federal Reserve Board kept track of the band's money. "Some people used to complain that the band was smoking these funny hand-rolled cigarettes," recalls Washington lawyer Leonard Garment, another sober-sided member of the touring ensemble. "But Alan was clean as Clark Kent: he handled the books and never ran a deficit...
...since the U.S. Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates on Feb. 4 and again on March 22, the man who is often called the second most powerful official in Washington has seen the world's financial markets spin far beyond his -- or anyone else's -- control. Worse yet, Greenspan, probably one of the most political of the political appointees in the job, now finds himself under assault -- and not just because some have blamed him for the markets' recent bungee jumping. Ironically, it is his almost Clintonian sense of dealmaking and compromise, often for the purpose of protecting...
...prices reeling in recent weeks, knocking nearly 10% off the Dow Jones industrial average since its peak on Jan. 31 and placing the future of Wall Street's three-year-old bull run in serious doubt. But beneath the immediate outcry lies a more fundamental criticism of the way Greenspan has tried to keep his balance between several constituencies. According to this line of attack, Greenspan, who fiercely resisted White House pressure for lower interest rates during the Bush Administration, has sought to make an ally of Clinton in an effort to fend off those in Congress who want...
...those who criticize him for having been too accommodating to the White House, Greenspan can say it has not always brought him peace. Indeed, the Fed had to spend much of last winter fending off a proposal by Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen that would have created a superagency to regulate banks and thus usurp much of the Fed's supervisory authority. (The original plan is virtually dead.) Greenspan has also had to contend with some of Congress's most powerful members, who have long chafed at the secretive behavior of the Fed and in the past year have drafted legislation...
What happens next depends partly on what small investors do, how many speculative bond and stock holdings financed by borrowed money still have to be unwound -- and also, of course, on what the Fed does. One guess is that Greenspan may push rates up another half to three-quarters of a point but let it go at that. If so, the economy may slow somewhat, particularly as higher interest rates translate into more expensive mortgage, car-purchase and credit-card loans. Tyson, however, thinks any such effect would only balance forces that may be working for a faster expansion, keeping...