Monday, March 29, 2010

Greenspan's Most Notable Phrase

Alan Greenspan recently gave a lengthy video interview on Bloomberg. A short summary is found at this link; the actual video is the first listed near the bottom of the article.

I found the video to be most interesting. Greenspan elaborates upon his recent "The Crisis" paper, which I mentioned on March 23. As well, he discusses many other issues.

While there is much I can comment upon in this interview, I want to focus on a key phrase he mentions with regard to what is now happening:

"You can see the whole blossoming of finance."

I believe this to be the most notable of all of Greenspan's famous phrases.

I think we are seeing a blossoming - not of "finance", but instead of (hyper)bubbles. I think there are many bubbles of severe magnitude throughout the worldwide economy. I have previously written of these bubbles in a variety of posts.

I strongly disagree with those who think that bursting bubbles are not something to be unduly concerned about. In fact, Greenspan says in the interview, "Remember that the bursting of the bubble by itself is not a big catastrophe. We had a dot-com bubble, it burst, and the economy barely moved.”

While it may be pleasant to ignore the existence of bubbles, and downplay the potential significance of their bursting, I believe that the existence and prevalence of bubbles in today's worldwide economy is perhaps the largest threat to achieving Sustainable Prosperity.

SPX at 1166.59 as this post is written

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