Special Report: Alan Greenspan Dies at 100

**Karen Moskow** (0:01)
News When You Want It with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Karen Moskow. We bring you this special report with NBC reporting former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has died at the age of 100 We take a look at his life and legacy with Bloomberg's John Tucker.

**John Tucker** (0:18)
Greenspan was born in New York in 1926 He studied clarinet at New York's Juilliard School and went on the road with the Henry Jerome Orchestra. Between gigs, he started reading books on stocks and eventually quit the band to study business and economics at NYU.
He met libertarian icon Ayan Rand in the early 50s and joined her inner circle. She nicknamed him the Undertaker and he soaked up her notions about free markets. Greenspan first entered the political scene in the late 1960s. He was sworn in as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ford and in 1987 Ronald Reagan appointed Greenspan to head up the Federal Reserve.

**Alan Greenspan** (1:03)
It's my pleasure to welcome Alan Greenspan.

**John Tucker** (1:06)
He'd go on to serve in unprecedented five terms. Greenspan cultivated a wizard-like aura with markets holding their collective breath ahead of his often cryptic comments. His mention of an irrational exuberance in the markets briefly sent stocks tumbling around the world. His legacy would be challenged when the financial crisis erupted less than two years after he stepped down. He wouldn't be spared in the blame game that followed. The chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was Phil Angelides.

**Karen Moskow** (1:36)
My view is you could have, you should have, and you didn't.

**John Tucker** (1:39)
And I do think this is one area we have to explore.

**Alan Greenspan** (1:42)
The issue of retrospective and figuring out what you should have done differently is a really futile activity because you can't in fact in the real world do it. I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong for 30% of the time.

**John Tucker** (1:57)
He later insisted to Bloomberg the meltdown was a once in a century event that no one could see coming.

**Alan Greenspan** (2:03)
Everybody missed it. Academia, the Federal Reserve, all regulators.

**John Tucker** (2:07)
Late in retirement, another crisis would emerge. Greenspan spoke again to Bloomberg during the height of the pandemic.

**Alan Greenspan** (2:14)
The virus is creating a major element of uncertainty. And so we have to deal with it. Forecasting it is very precarious.

**John Tucker** (2:26)
The thing he loved most was as Dr. Greenspan to diagnose the patient, which was the economy. John Tucker, Bloomberg Radio.

**Karen Moskow** (2:36)
All right, John, thank you. And again, NBC reporting, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has died at the age of 100 The cause was said to be complications of Parkinson's disease.
That's News When You Want It with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Karen Moskow and this is Bloomberg.