Alan Greenspan dies at 100 years old! He looked like a 100 years old when he was 75!
Thanks, MTP!
I already posted about his passing in the stocks thread a few hours ago here in case anyone missed it although AG’s passing is deserving of its own thread:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/120945/#121018
I disagree with MTP about his looking 100 at 75. I thought he looked vibrant even at 79 when he finished his last term as Fed Chair. Having a significantly younger wife (Andrea Mitchell) didn’t hurt. And that may have helped him to live a blessed long life. <G>
He had enormous respect as evidenced by his being renominated by POTUS’ of both parties.
Does anyone remember the CNBC “briefcase indicator”? The thicker the stuff in his briefcase going into a Fed Meeting, the higher the chance for a rate increase. <G>. I’m not making this up! CNBC had a lot of fun with this. I’ll never forget!
Previous thread: VERY bad time to invest in the stock market!!
Started by metmike - June 18, 2026, 2:56 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/120945/
Thanks, Mike!
RIP, Alan Greenspan!
He was the best!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance
"Irrational exuberance" is the phrase used by the then-Federal Reserve Board chairman, Alan Greenspan, in a December 1996 speech given at the American Enterprise Institute during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. The phrase was interpreted as a warning that the stock market might be overvalued.
Greenspan wrote in his 2008 book that the phrase occurred to him in the bathtub while he was writing a speech.[4]
The irony of the phrase and its aftermath lies in Greenspan's widely held reputation as the most artful practitioner of Fedspeak, often known as Greenspeak, in the modern televised era. The speech coincided with the rise of dedicated financial TV channels around the world that would broadcast his comments live, such as CNBC. Greenspan's idea was to obfuscate his true opinion in long complex sentences with obscure words so as to intentionally mute any strong market response.[5]
The phrase was also used by Yale professor Robert J. Shiller, who was reportedly Greenspan's source for the phrase.[6] Shiller used it as the title of his book, Irrational Exuberance, first published in 2000, where Shiller states:
Irrational exuberance is the psychological basis of a speculative bubble. I define a speculative bubble as a situation in which news of price increases spurs investor enthusiasm, which spreads by psychological contagion from person to person, in the process amplifying stories that might justify the price increases, and bringing in a larger and larger class of investors who, despite doubts about the real value of an investment, are drawn to it partly by envy of others' successes and partly through a gamblers' excitement
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While no 2 events are exactly the same, history will often repeat itself for the same reasons. How ironic that we are discussing the man who recognized the dot.com bubble years before it burst, EXACTLY when the stock market is repeating his "irrational exuberance"!!!
The AI bubble is nowhere as extreme as the dot. com bubble. However the market is extremely over bought, over leveraged, unbalanced, over valued and unhealthy, very similar to when Greenspan recognized the exact same market dynamics that led to a crash that took the Nasdaq 15 years to recover from.
The president for the stock market, who's main agenda is to pump up and jaw bone the stock market higher has greatly contributed.
When that president is impeached, it's not just a question of the stock market falling hard by -XX%. The question is HOW far the double digit drop will be and how long (years) it will take to recover?
We should remember that almost all the sources for information about the current stock market in 2026 and forecasts are the ones most heavily invested in the current bubble. This would be like getting your report about chicken health in the hen house by using the fox!!!
They (and investors) suffer from extreme bias in 2026.
https://fooletfs.com/insights/how-cognitive-biases-can-negatively-affect-your-investment-decisions
Bad returns aren’t always a result of a bad market. Are you the problem?
Alan Greenspan was fed chair during both the dot com bubble and the 2000s real estate bubble. He did nothing to stop the collapse of the first, and actively reduced bank regulation, doing much to create the Great Recession.
He has a lot of good press, so to balance - a slightly hyperbolic teardown at https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/06/rare-notable-exceptions-2
A sample:
It was during the early 1950s that Alan Greenspan fell for the worst author to ever write in the English language: Ayn Rand. He was very briefly married to a woman named Joan Mitchell, who despite getting an annulment within a year, introduced Greenspan to Rand’s writings. Worst. Marriage. Ever. He became a fervent Randist, quite literally worshipping at her feet. He was such an insider that he was one of the group that got to read drafts of Atlas Shrugged while they were being written. That he and the others didn’t read this drivel and immediately flee in horror from the morally bankrupt cheap philosophy, the clunky prose, and the absurd attempts at character development demonstrates both the poor taste and the power of pure selfishness reified into religion by people such as Greenspan.
Thanks very much, patrick.
That's the type of post which I enjoy the most. It contradicted my previous thoughts from a source that obviously knows a lot and will always know more about Greenspan than me, even if they are politically biased.
I will assume that at least some of that is true and use it to try to understand the position of Erik Loomis, which may be reasonable without wasting time trying to refute any of it.
And be grateful for knowing more after reading it than I did before reading it.
Loomis is a labor history professor at URI. His grammar, spelling, and attitude can be a bit rough, but he's pretty reliable on facts. Also, he does a lot of obits and grave visits, so he'd had this written and ready a long time ago.
Yes, with Greenspan being 100, I'm sure he knew his days were numbered and based on his comments, he couldn't wait to release them upon his death.
With regards to capitalism, my own views have changed a great deal.
As a very liberal young person that voted D, I saw the benefits of socialism.
When I flipped to the R party in the 1990's, making 6 figures in many years trading commodities and wanted to keep as much as possible, capitalism was best.
In recent decades, money isn't as important as helping people, social justice and making the world a better place which makes many elements of socialism appealing.
I like a version of the Bernie Sanders model for socialized medicine as an example. It's a crime for this country to be the richest in the world and to have so many people suffering and without basic health care which should be a right regardless of your income or lack of it.