Understanding the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan on the Daily Show
Posted by Blain Reinkensmeyer
October 8, 2007 at 9:12 pm
If you want to understand why interest rates are cut, what the Federal Reserve does, and how it ties in with the stock market, you need to spend 7 minutes 46 seconds watching Alan Greenspan on the Daily Show (Video is below).
This is very basic information and honestly I found it extremely beneficial.
Barry from the Big Picture (if you haven’t read his blog before you’re really missing out) basically sums up what Greenspan admitted to John Stewart:
- Excess money causes inflation.
- Fed easy credit favors stock market operators at the expense of savers.
- The Fed believes that the market trades more on perception of what the Fed is or will do instead of the actual policies.
- The Fed must make the market perceive that the system is sound.
- The presence of the Fed guarantees there is no ‘free market’.
- He still can’t forecast the economy or whether there is a bubble or too much exuberance.
The video is below, and note to RSS Subscribers you probably will have to click through to view it (If you don’t want to watch you can read the script at Barry’s blog). The interview was to promote Greenspan’s new book, The Age of Turbulence:


Never expected to see Greenspan on the Daily Show
Who would’ve thought?
yeah it was a little strange to see this
Greenspan is on an ego trip right now that everyone is high on him after his retirement and his comments on the Iraq war. Personally, Bernanke is much more in touch with the middle and lower class than Greenspan.
It was really nice and educational to see Greenspan on the Daily Show. I would also recommend reading his book. It’s incredibly informative!
WOW, congrats on the big jump in RSS readers Blain! Must have been the Zen Habits plug?
Oh sweet! Didn’t know I’d be above 700 today, welcome Zen readers eh?
Blain any chance of getting a review on the book?
What do you mean? Greenspan paying me to read his book and review it or me just buying and reviewing it? I think it’d be B.
[...] Understanding the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan on the Daily Show [...]
I call Greenspan “The Bubble Man” and Bernanke “Son of Bubble Man.” Whatever “the Maestro” says he believes, the fact is he presided over one of history’s greatest bubble economies.
For more, check out my song, “The Bubble Man”
http://www.myspace.com/scotto2008