Special Report: Alan Greenspan Dies at 100

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1:19Let's create smarter business, IBM. This is Breaking News from Bloomberg. Some breaking news at the moment, Alan Greenspan, the influential economist who steered U.S. monetary policy during his five terms as chairman of the Federal Reserve under four presidents, died Monday, his wife said in a statement. He was 100. This is according to NBC. Right now, let's go to David Wesson with some thoughts on the life of Alan Greenspan. Greenspan's first exposure to the global financial system he would lead came playing the clarinet in a jazz band at a New Hampshire resort in 1944. not really understanding at the time that the delegates gathered one floor below him were working through what would become the Bretton Woods Accords.

2:05I was at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. I didn't have a clue what all of that noise around me was. And somebody said, well, there's a big convention here. And I said, oh, too bad. I didn't think about it again for 75 years. 43 years later, he'd gone from playing in the band to becoming simply the chairman, presiding over the Federal Reserve for nearly 20 years. That's the second longest tenure in history. Known for supporting the economy through what became known as the Greenspan put that helped give the United States unprecedented prosperity through the 1990s. Alan Greenspan was the first to admit he didn't know everything.

2:50Not even he could have anticipated something never taught in economics, the possibility of negative interest rates. How in the world did we end up with negative interest rates? Interest rates are a major component of what economists call time preference. It's the extent of discounting human beings make about values today versus values tomorrow. But to the end, Chair Greenspan remained focused on the big questions that he found timeless, and especially on the threat posed by our looming national deficit. The one thing that has been a very considerable surprise in recent years is the extent to which unequivocally entitlements are crowding out gross domestic savings, dollar for dollar.

3:44to get that changed is a huge political issue. Though he has been gone from his position at the top of the Federal Reserve for over a quarter century, the hole that he leaves will continue on well into the future. That was Bloomberg's David Weston with some thoughts on the passing of Alan Greenspan, former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, who died today at the age of 100. So Isabel Lee joining me. Tom Keene is off today. Isabel Lee. So some big news, a influential voice to say the least five terms is chairman of the Federal Reserve under four presidents. And he achieved celebrity status, I think, under President Bill Clinton when stocks soared to record highs.

4:23I think The Economist magazine dubbed him a rock star. And a lot of his admirers call him the maestro, definitely a revered former Fed chair. Yeah, I mean, 100 years down to this, a heck of a run. James Egelhoff joins us here. He's the chief U.S. economist for BNP Paribas. He's in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. James, just huge news from folks like economists, market watchers. Alan Greenspan, just a monumental figure. A huge figure in the history of the Federal Reserve. Really a dominant figure in the way the Fed communicates with markets, the way the Fed operates in markets. Much of what we debate, including this past week, is a reaction to his legacy.

5:00What is the role of the chair versus the rest of the committee? Alan Greenspan was a larger-than-life figure who set policy pretty much independently. the way he communicates, the way he would walk around with a big briefcase or a small briefcase to signal rate moves, his approach to public speaking. A lot of what we debate now is a reaction to his term in office. Even the phrase, irrational exuberance, is something that he coined, and I still hear that decades after. Well, it's because Alan Greenspan led the economy through the 90s, through the last time we had a very, very exuberant tech boom.

5:34And so some of these historical echoes we hear today. Alan Greenspan, for example, cut rates three times after the failure of long-term capital in 98, which we think Jay Powell lifted from very, very liberally last year when he cut rates after tariffs. And so now it's a lot of debate now about whether new Chair Warsh will have to lift a page from Alan Greenspan's playbook in 1999 when he took those insurance cuts back. Boy, you forget. I mean, Mr. Greenspan served as Fed Chair Chief for 18 years, 1987 to 2006 and was credited with guiding a record U.S. economic expansion. But his legacy was later dimmed by the financial crisis that erupted in 2008.

6:11James, thanks so much. Appreciate it. As always, James Egohoff, chief U.S. economist for BNP Paribas. Lots of news flows out here today with Mr. Greenspan. We want to get some perspective here on these items. John McClathwaite joins us here, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. He is in our London office at the moment. John, John, talk to us about your thoughts here on Alan Greenspan's such an extraordinary career, spanning so many years, so many presidencies and reshaping kind of the Federal Reserve. Love to get your thoughts on Mr. Greenspan and his passing. Well, first, obviously, it's a sad day in that respect.

6:48I think Greenspan was one of the great central bankers on multiple different levels, really. Very, very intelligent. He's also kind of very cryptic in terms of the way he often communicated to people. But I think he also had this very long sort of intellectual history. It goes back all the way to the fact that he was involved with Ayn Rand and stuff like that. He went through different kinds of intellectual fashions. And on the whole, he ran the economy pretty well. There will always be people who question how much his loosening set up the kind of financial crisis. But there were other factors at work there as well.

7:31It wasn't just him. So I think he goes as a giant of central banking. What do you think is the biggest legacy that he left us with, especially now as the Federal Reserve and questions about its independence continue to hound markets and investors? That's a good point. I think he was a very strong advocate of central bank independence. I mean, sometimes you forget these things, that you forget how different the world was at one time. But the fact that you ended up with Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, people like Ben Bernanke afterwards, the whole presumption of what they did was that the Federal Reserve should be separate and independent.

8:20In places like Britain, where I am at the moment, that was also a more recent thing. This is not something that has always been there. It's the kind of reputation that has to be built. And it's interesting the way that Jay Powell has managed to sort of defend that, I think actually relatively successfully, against Donald Trump's attempts to intervene in that area. John, thank you so much. We really appreciate getting your thoughts here and your perspective. John McElthwaite. He's the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. He is in Bloomberg's London headquarters, Queen Victoria Street.

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