The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World | Alan Greenspan

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World | Alan Greenspan | Wisdom of a charming geek

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The Age of Turbule...

	The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World Alan Greenspan Penguin Press HC, The, 2007 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 236 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Age Of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan?s incomparable reckoning with the contemporary financial world, channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. Following the arc of his remarkable life?s journey through his more than eighteen-year tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to the present, in the second half of The Age of Turbulence Dr. Greenspan embarks on a magnificent tour d?horizon of the global economy. The distillation of a life?s worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, The Age of Turbulence will stand as Alan Greenspan?s personal and intellectual legacy.

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Straight from the maestro

A must read for anyone interested in economics in general especially economics at the macro level. Especially with current economic crisis changing rules and shaking faith in 'laissez faire' capitalism.

People now blame him for the crisis, I think it is not the individual but the ideology that did us in to this mess. History will judge him for years but this is a must glimpse in the life and mind of an intellectual who played a towering role as world's central banker.

In the end, free markets don't work without proper legal framework put in place. One would argue US has the best legal framework to support free markets but I would say it was the loopholes which created absence of it and then it was free for all take what you can get looting. I would think Mr. Chairman will agree with this, although what level of regulation can we put in place and who will decide when is the right time to put a brake is debatable. The party lasted long on the street after easy fed money was gone but the liquidity in the global market allowed the party to continue. Potentially he could have ended the carry trade party earlier but again all this can be said with benefit of hindsight.

The book is a great auto biography of an important intellectual of our times written in very accessible style language and representation. A necessary read in our times and may be for future generations to avoid the similar if I may "Irrational Exuberance!".

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Wisdom of a charming geek

I am a data person. Don't tell me the world is going to the dogs; give me the data. And I always recorded Greenspan's congressional testimony if I couldn't be home for it. So maybe it's just me, but I found this the best thing I had read for a long time. He makes fun of his fed speak and tells us about presidents he has worked with and explains what was going on through his lengthy career. His enormous charm comes through. His epilogue on the current crisis, which must have been written a few months before the crisis point, provides a perspective CNBC has not voiced, tho not inconsistent. Each chapter is a 15-20 page essay on a topic suggested by the chronology of his life. And it's easier to follow than his fedspeak testimony. I found it a real page turner.

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dry subject made interesting

I'm about halfway through the book and find it fascinating. I am not an economist nor a policy wonk, but his interfaces with administrations from Nixon to the present, make for a deeper understanding of why the economy functions the way it does.

Better than the election debates

This guy breathes economics and shares several thoughtful insights into how the global economy is affecting American politics. Pair this book with The Power of Productivity and you'll definitely have a better picture of how the world works.

Fedspeak, part 2

What amazed me about this book was how little the book talked about economic policy and its underpinnings. Why did the fed do what it did during Greenspan's tenure? If you are looking for answers to that sort of questions, you will get nothing from this book. In fact, it is not clear if Greenspan even has a framework for monetary policy. For instance, he does not have great regard for Keynes' work, but almost everything he did would appear to be Keynesian. No explanations are offered. I found Alan Blinder's book a lot more illuminating on substantive issues.

What you will get from this book is a lot of commentary on personalities of powerful politicians---a subject for which the author demonstrates more passion than any other. This is perhaps the book's redeeming feature: it is admittedly somewhat interesting and perhaps gives us a glimpse into why really Greenspan was one of the most powerful people in Washington for such a long tenure.

It did get me thinking very differently about fedspeak though: I was constantly reminded of Peter Sellers in "Being there", as I read the book. Perhaps for that insight alone, my money was well spent on the book.

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