The man who steered the Fed for nearly two decades, and later took the blame for the 2008 crash, has passed away.
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman whose words once moved markets with a single phrase, died Monday at his Washington home. He was 100. His wife, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, confirmed the cause as complications from Parkinson’s disease.
The Details
Greenspan ran the Fed from 1987 to 2006, the second-longest tenure in its history. Under his watch, the S&P 500 nearly quadrupled, unemployment fell to 3.8% – a 1969 low – and the economy grew at an average 3.5% a year. His 1996 warning about “irrational exuberance” became one of the most quoted lines in market history, briefly tanking stocks before they roared back.
But his legacy took a hit. Less than two years after he left office, the housing bubble he downplayed as merely “frothy” helped trigger the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. He later admitted to Congress he’d been wrong “30% of the time.”
Why It Matters
Greenspan defined the modern Fed playbook: low rates, light-touch regulation, and market-moving public commentary. Every “Fed-speak” headline traders parse today traces back to the precedent he set – both the good calls and the costly ones.
Watch for tributes from current Fed officials and renewed debate over how central banks should handle asset bubbles, a question still shaping rate decisions today.
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Source: Yahoo Finance
Time: 3:30 PM EEST
