Iconic Fed Chief Prepares His Departure - Alan GreenspanAP - 1/22/06 - Nancy Benac WASHINGTON - America has embraced Alan Greenspan with
irrational exuberance. The slight, aging economist with the supersize glasses and claymation facial expressions has inspired a symphonic overture, a country music paean and a red-hot gallery exhibition of "Alan as Art." Queen Elizabeth awarded him honorary knighthood.
"Our contemporary Greek oracle," says linguist Robin Lakoff from California.
"Larger than life," says lawyer Lanny Davis from Washington.
"This guy has become famous for being really, really brilliant and really, really smart about something, but most people have no idea what it is he does," says pop culture expert Robert Thompson from New York.
What he has done, it turns out, is manage the U.S. economy with great assurance for the past 18 years, presiding over an era of remarkable prosperity (interrupted by two mild recessions).
He has done this as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, a powerful and somewhat mystical institution that guides U.S. monetary policy.
From that vantage, Greenspan has steered the economy through multiple international and domestic crises while keeping inflation and unemployment in check and helping the country adapt to the tectonic shifts of globalization and technology.
His influence extends even into the lexicon.
Irrational exuberance? Credit Greenspan for the captivating phrase.
He said it once — in 1996, hoping to temper the zeal of stock investors willing to pay any price.
The phrase soon became part of American culture.When Dickinson College music professor Robert Pound heard it, he decided the phrase would be the perfect title for an overture with an erratic, wild quality that he had been itching to write.Now, as the 79-year-old Greenspan prepares to retire from the Fed at month's end, Pound has sent him a signed copy of the overture's score to honor Greenspan's work as Fed chairman.
Retrospectives, farewells and tributes to the "Greenspan era" have proliferated since the Fed chief made it known that he is retiring on Jan. 31. His successor will be Ben Bernanke, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Bernanke's first order of business after being nominated was to reassure the world that his priority as Fed head would be to continue the policies of the "Greenspan years." That sent the stock market soaring.
In a 93-page analysis of the "Greenspan Standard" that was released last summer, Princeton University economists Alan Blinder and Ricardo Reis concluded,
"We think he has a legitimate claim to being the greatest central banker who ever lived."Saying goodbye to Greenspan will not be easy.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., reflected the country's infatuation with the Fed chief when he was asked in 1999 whether Greenspan should be appointed to another term.
"I would not only reappoint Mr. Greenspan," McCain said, "if Mr. Greenspan should happen to die — God forbid — I would do like we did in the movie, 'Weekend at Bernie's.' I'd prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him and keep him as long as we could."
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Hey gang, coined any phrases worthy of song lately? 
OP
