This is breaking news from Bloomberg.
Some breaking news at the moment. Alan Greenspan, the influential economists who steered US monetary policy during his five terms as Chairman of the Federal Reserve under four presidents, died Monday. His wife said in a statement he was one hundred. This is according to NBC. Right now, let's go to David Wesson with some thoughts on the life of Alan Greenspin.
Greenspan's first exposure to the global financial system he would lead came playing the clarinet in a jazz band at a New Hampshire resort in nineteen forty four, not really understanding at the time that the delegates gathered one floor below him were working through what would become the Breton Woods Accords.
I was at the Mount Washington Hotel in Breton Woods, New Hampshire. I didn't have a clue what all of that noise around me was. And somebody said there was a big convention here. I said, oh, too bad. I didn't think about it again for seventy five years.
Forty three years later, he had gone from playing in the band to becoming simply the chairman presiding over the Federal Reserve. For nearly twenty years. That's the second longest tenure in history. Known for supporting the economy through what became known as the Greenspan put that helped give the
United States unprecedented prosperity through the nineteen nineties. Alan Greenspan was the first to admit he didn't know everything, not even he could have anticipated something never taught in economics, the possibility of negative interest rates.
How in the world did we end up with negative interest rates? Interest rates are a major component of what eccounts called time preference. It's the extent of discounting human beings make about values today versus values tomorrow.
But to the end, Chair Greenspan remained focused on the big questions that he found timeless, and especially on the threat posed by our looming national deficit.
The one thing that has been a very considerable surprise in recent years is the extent to which unequivocally entitlements of crowding out gross domestic savings dollar a dollar. To get that changed is a huge political issue.
Though he has been gone from his position at the top of the Federal Reserve for over a quarter century, the whole that he leaves will continue on well into the future.
That was Bloomberg Stavid Weston with some thoughts on the passing of Alan Greenspan. Former fits here. Alan Greenspan, who died today at the age of one hundred, Isabell Lee joining me Tom Keen is off today Isabelle Lee. So some big news. A influential voice, to say the least five terms as Chairman of the Federal Reserve under four presidents.
And he achieved celebrity status. I think under President Bill Clinton win stocks to record heis. I think the Economist magazine dubbed him a rock star, and a lot of his admirers call him the maestro. Definitely a revered former FED chair.
Yeah, I mean one hundred years that it is a heck of a run. James Eggohoff joins us here. He's the chief US economist for BNP Parrybah. He's in our Bloomberg and directive broker studio. James just huge news from folks like economists, market watchers. Alan Greenspan just a monumental.
Figure, a huge figure in the history of the Federal Reserve, really a dominant in the dominant figure in the way the Fed communicates with markets, the way the Fed operates in markets. Much of what we debate, including this past week, is a reaction to his legacy. How does what is the role of the chair versus the rest of the committee? Alan Greenspin was an over larger than life figure who
set policy pretty much independently. The way he communicates, the way he would walk around with a big briefrace or a small briefcase, the signal rate moves, his approach to his public speaking. A lot of what we debate now is a reaction to.
His term in office.
Even the phrase irrational exuberns is something that he coined and I still hear that decades after.
Well, it's because Alan Greenspan led the economy through the nineties through the last time we had a very very exuberant tech boom, and so some of these historical echoes we hear today. Alan Greenspan, for example, cut rates three times that to the failure of long term capital in ninety eight, which we think out which we think Jay Powell lifted from very very liberally last year winning cut
rates after tariffs. And so now a lot of debate now about whether new chair wars will have to lift a page from Alan Greenspan's playbook in ninte ninety nine when he took those insurance cuts back.
Well, you forget.
I mean mister Greenspan service bed chair chief for eighteen years nineteen eighty seven to two thousand and six. It was credit with guiding a record US economic expansion, but his legacy was laan or dimmed by the financial crisis that erupted in two thousand and eight. James, thanks so much, appreciate it as always. James Egoholf, chief US Economists for BNP. Parry bought lots of news flows out here today with mister Greenspan. We want to get some perspective here on
these items. John mcleithwaite joints this here, editor in chief of Bloomberg News. He is in our London office at the moment. John talked to us about your thoughts here on Alan green Span. Such an extraordinary career spanning so many years, so many presidencies and reshaping kind of the Federal Reserve. Love to get your thoughts on mister green Pen and his passing.
Well, obviously it's a sad day in that respect. I think he you know, green Span was one of the great central bankers on multiple different levels. Really very very intelligent, also kind of very cryptic in terms of the way he often communicated to people. But I think he always had this very long sort of intellectual history, goes back all the way to the fact that he was involved with him Anne Rand and stuff like that. He went through different kind of intellectual fashions, and on the whole
he ran the economy pretty well well. There will always be people who question, you know, how much his loosening set up the kind of financial crisis, but you know there were other factors at work there as well. It wasn't just him. So I think he will he goes as a giant of central banking.
What do you think is the biggest legacy that he left us with, especially now as the Federal Reserve and questions about it independence continue to hound markets and investors.
That's a good point. I think he was a very strong advocate of central bank independence. I mean, sometimes you forget these things that you forget how different the world was at one time. But the fact that you ended up with Paul Volka, Alan Greenspan, obviously people like Ben Bananke afterwards. The whole presumption of what they did was that the Federal Reserve should be separate and independent in places like Britain more at the moment. You know, that
was also a more recent things. This is not something that has always been there. It's the kind of reputation that has to be built. And it's interesting the way that Jay Powell has managed to sort of defend that, I think actually relatively successfully against some Donald Trump's attempts to sort of intervene in that area.
John, thank you so much for We really appreciate getting your thoughts here and your perspective. John mcclethwaite, he's the editor in chief of Bloomberg News. He is in Lumberg's London headquarters of Queen Victoria History