Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets

I, Greenspan

I, Alan Aurifericus Nefarious Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, holder of the Medal of Freedom, Knight of the British Empire, member of the French Legion of Honor, known to my peers as the “greatest central banker who ever lived” … (I will not trouble you with all my titles. I will not mention, for example, that I was the winner of the prestigious Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service—awarded on November 1, 2001. … That was a month before Enron filed the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history … and collapsed in a heap of corruption charges—and did I tell you that Ken Lay actually called me up? He wanted me to step in, like Long Term Capital Management, he said. Of course I didn't … and of course I turned down the cash that went with it … and that beastly little crystal trophy thing, too) … yes … where was I? Oh, yes. I, Greenspan, am about to give you the strange history of my later life.

For I will dispense with childhood and even with young adulthood, and those dreary sessions with that very dreary woman, Ayn Rand, who couldn't write a compelling sentence if her life depended on it, and my own dreary years at the Council of Economic Advisers … and pass directly to the time I spent as the most powerful man in the world. For here are my real titles: emperor of the world's most powerful money, ruler of the world's largest and most dynamic economy, and architect of the most audacious financial system this sorry globe has ever seen.

Yes, I, Alan ...