It would appear to be the sellout of the century, in a century of sellouts.

From Gold and Economic Freedom by Alan Greenspan in 1966 (Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal):

"The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which - through a complex series of steps - the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believe he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets."

How anybody that sees the nature of a scam, decry it as evil, and then fully participate in and perpetuate that very scam, is beyond me. How could one live with oneself?

Greenspan didn't complete his training ... and turned into a Sith!

Hello ycandrea,
He was corrupted.
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.” Lord Acton
Respectfully,
O.A.

It was all about the money they gave him plus the perks, a private airplane, and what he perceived as prestige
Otherwise he is a turncoat and as jbrenner stated sith!

Alan Greenjeans er, Greenspan, Gave up Objectivism when he seized upon the opportunity of becoming head of Fed. It made him. He got notoriety, a beautiful wife, lots of $$ (lectures, articles, the word of God). To this day his word is highly respected, and his economic principles, while they are close to those of Objectivism, cannot be taken at face value. Since he has stepped into the dark side, his pronouncements should be viewed with skepticism.

I read his book Age of Turbulence before I read Rand. It seemed like he had a crush on her in that book. Yet much of the book was advocating less political interference over the Fed Reserve. I wonder what he thinks bitcoin.

Excellent observation. I have wondered about this as well. I think the usual justification is that they can mitigate the damage being done. Similar to Education Secretaries that had previously called for the elimination of the Education Department. Total contradiction.

What did Rand think of Greenspan once he got into the position of power? I just dont remember.

Good Question. He was a real statist in my opinion. I didnt like him at all.

I saw Greenspan commenting about Brexit and at 90, I wonder if anything he says is valuable today. I believe he thought he could make a difference but became corrupted by the power he sought to restrict. I fear that potential is a part of our human nature.

The Fed is a central bank on steroids, grown even beyond the bounds imagined by Alexander Hamilton. Central planning sounds so good to an intellectual. Just think, if a smart person didn't control everything, the uneducated, stupid masses would influence everything!!! Free markets are not controlled but operate on the basis of the decisions of every economic entity. Opposition to market forces is futile in the long run because they don't go away, don't need to be constantly reenergized and are relentless. Trying to fight nature with monetary policy while encouraging fiscal insanity is role the Fed and they are very good at it.

Gold is pretty much a useless metal but it is in finite supply, costs money to extract and refine and therefore puts a limit on the money supply. Paper is made from trees and the supply gets replenished daily. Discipline and restraint in printing it is too much to expect of a mere mortal, even one that sat at the right hand of Rand.

Simple, Power and Money.

Greenspan reminds me of Paul Larkin who pretended to be Hank Reardons friend. He bought the iron ore mines from Hank after "the Equalization of Opportunities act". A phony opportunist or looter.

It has bothered me for 30 years .When I 1st learned about the fed it has has 20 secret shareholders by law it is a quasi- govt agency meaning it is afforded the benifits of the govt status with out the schackle of rules or edict from the govt(independent of).
See Jekyll Island scheme.
But it goes much further back in time.

It was the result of a well orchestrated scheme.
First create havoc in the commodities markets and economies with booms and busts in manipulated actions. Then promote an unacceptable solution with the fed plan as your real goal. Lie lie lie about the fact that it will end bank failures and than 15 years later every bank in the country fails. Than take away the gold make it illegal to own, force exchange to fed reserve notes.

Upon discovery I wondered why such an important part of our country wasn't taught or complained about by the leaders.

I don't wonder any more.

Don't worry, I think it bothers everyone.

I had a conversation with an Objectivist economist years ago and asked about Greenspan. He commented that Greenspan sold years ago.

he has puzzled me for decades. . he must have gone
astray along the way. . I used to say, "once you've seen
the truth with Rand, you can't go back." . but people
keep on proving me wrong. -- j
.

Unless you're Mother Teresa or Gandhi, money and power trump ideology - every time.

I would of thought he might have done it to improve things and maybe do some good for a change. I don't actually know how much he did or did not have any influence over.

I don't buy the logic of the headline. The US government is very corrupt, but if I had a chance to be a congressman or President I would go for it. I just wouldn't do corrupt things. (Granted, that means I'd probably never get in, or wouldn't stay in very long, but having ethics has its costs.)

It's plausible that the system is so corrupt that there was no chance Greenspan could clean it up, but I doubt he believed that when he took the job.

As far as centralized control of our money structure -- I don't think it is possible to avoid that. If the Fed were abolished, it would almost certainly be replaced with a new Bank of the US.

I think I read that Ayn Rand discussed it with
Greenspan before he took a job in the Federal
government.--But then, I don't remember for sure,
it may have been a different Federal job.

If I wanted to bring down the Federal Reserve system, I might start with the Federal Reserve. Also, the Wikipedia article expresses this same concern (citing H. Binswanger):

"In the early 1950s, Greenspan began an association with novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. Greenspan was introduced to Rand by his first wife, Joan Mitchell. Rand nicknamed Greenspan "the undertaker" because of his penchant for dark clothing and reserved demeanor. Although Greenspan was initially a logical positivist, he was converted to Rand's philosophy of Objectivism by her associate Nathaniel Branden. He became one of the members of Rand's inner circle, the Ayn Rand Collective, who read Atlas Shrugged while it was being written. During the 1950s and 1960s Greenspan was a proponent of Objectivism, writing articles for Objectivist newsletters and contributing several essays for Rand's 1966 book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal including an essay supporting the gold standard. Rand stood beside him at his 1974 swearing-in as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Greenspan and Rand remained friends until her death in 1982.

He has come under criticism from Harry Binswanger, who believes his actions while at work for the Federal Reserve and his publicly expressed opinions on other issues show abandonment of Objectivist and free market principles. When questioned in relation to this, however, he has said that in a democratic society individuals have to make compromises with each other over conflicting ideas of how money should be handled. He said he himself had to make such compromises, because he believes that "we did extremely well" without a central bank and with a gold standard. In a congressional hearing on October 23, 2008, Greenspan admitted that his free-market ideology shunning certain regulations was flawed. When asked about free markets and Rand's ideas, however, Greenspan clarified his stance on laissez faire capitalism and asserted that in a democratic society there could be no better alternative. He stated that the errors that were made stemmed not from the principle, but from the application of competitive markets in "assuming what the nature of risks would be".

E. Ray Canterbery has chronicled Greenspan's relationship with Rand, and has concluded that the influence has had pernicious effects on Greenspan's monetary policy."

I would add that unless you personally adhere to the Objectivist method of fact and evidence, then you are left with only assumptions. The comment from Greenspan over compromise might be considered an abandonment of Objectivist principles, or it might be considered legitimate, depending on his reasons and motivation:

"A compromise is an adjustment of conflicting claims by mutual concessions. This means that both parties to a compromise have some valid claim and some value to offer each other. And this means that both parties agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a base for their deal."

AND

"There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction."

Therefore, whether Greenspan erred as Binswanger has commented has to be proven as constituting a compromise on basic principles - based on the limited information provided in the Wikipedia article and the quotes from the Lexicon, that is.

I always did wonder what Alan Greenspan could have been thinking, or whether he was thinking. Did he seriously imagine he could put things right at the Federal Reserve? You can't do it. The Federal Reserve is fundamentally insolvent. Does the phrase "lie, agreed-upon" suggest itself here? It does to me.