Alan Greenspan lived to be 100.

I'm reading "Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman Through Prosperity and Crisis, Dies at 100/The pre-eminent economic policymaker of his time and a skilled political operator, he favored market-friendly stances that would later come to be associated with destructive financial forces" (NYT).

Even as Mr. Greenspan skillfully managed interest rates in a way that kept the economy humming along, he remained leery of confronting a danger he well recognized: that the low-inflation, easy-money environment he had helped create was putting the United States at risk by fueling unsustainable investment booms. And he remained reluctant to act as banks and investment firms adopted complex new trading techniques that would come to wreak great damage. At the Fed, he was remarkably successful at what he considered the central banker’s primary task of holding down inflation. He also helped the United States deal with periodic shocks, including a stock market crash just weeks after he took office, the near-meltdown of Asian financial markets a decade later and the aftereffects of the 2001 terrorist attacks....

From my blog archive:

October 23, 2008

"A flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

Greenspan says oops.

And there was a time when I was reading Greenspan's autobiography:

Greenspan: "This is not an issue of credit rating, the United States can pay any debt it has..."

"... because we can always print money to do that. So, there is zero probability of default."

Then what is it?

What I think the S&P thing did was to hit a nerve that there's something basically bad going on, and it's hit the self-esteem of the United States, the psyche. And it's having a much profounder effect than I conceived could happen because the economics of what they're talking about is very clear, and you cannot see any way in which we can go as we were on Friday for a vast movement of international funds into the dollar at very low interest rates and then turn on a dime. That is not going to happen. And so this is not the issue that they make it.

"Those durned climate models."

"Hey, its sorta like those durned economic models! Alan Greenspan belatedly acknowledged the now brutally apparent shortcomings of our computer-driven economic models.... Quick! Let's ram through some economically devastating (but state empowering) climate legislation before the science catches up with the hysteria!"

"A flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

Greenspan says oops.

Is it Greenspan's fault?

Peter S. Goodman has some clearly written analysis:

Economists from across the ideological spectrum have criticized his decision to let the nation’s real estate market continue to boom with cheap credit, courtesy of low interest rates, rather than snuffing out price increases with higher rates. Others have criticized Mr. Greenspan for not disciplining institutions that lent indiscriminately.

But whatever history ends up saying about those decisions, Mr. Greenspan’s legacy may ultimately rest on a more deeply embedded and much less scrutinized phenomenon: the spectacular boom and calamitous bust in derivatives trading....

“It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade,” Mr. Greenspan [wrote in his memoir "The Age of Turbulence"]. “The worst have failed; investors no longer fund them and are not likely to in the future.”...

“In a market system based on trust, reputation has a significant economic value,” Mr. Greenspan [said in a speech]. “I am therefore distressed at how far we have let concerns for reputation slip in recent years.”

As the long-serving chairman of the Fed, the nation’s most powerful economic policy maker, Mr. Greenspan preached the transcendent, wealth-creating powers of the market.

A professed libertarian, he counted among his formative influences the novelist Ayn Rand, who portrayed collective power as an evil force set against the enlightened self-interest of individuals. In turn, he showed a resolute faith that those participating in financial markets would act responsibly.

Much more at the link.

What books would you like to see translated into Arabic?

Kalima -- an organization based in the UAE -- wants Americans to nominate books for translation:

Kalima was founded last year by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage, and is based on a simple premise: Most great works of world literature are currently not available in Arabic, making them inaccessible to most readers in the Arab world. Among last year's international selections for translation were American authors William Faulkner, Alan Greenspan, Frank Herbert, and Thomas Pynchon....

"The initiative invokes a comparison to 'Bait Al Hikma,' or House of Wisdom--a library and a translation center established by Harun Al Rashid in the 9th century. This intellectual center ignited learning and discovery in the Arab world which, in turn, became an essential factor in the making of the modern world. In that light, it is noteworthy to mention that the complete works of great American writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner--are inaccessible to Arab readers," added Dr. Tamim. "These writers paint a vivid picture of the trials and triumphs of life in America, and by putting works like these into the hands of Arab readers, we are restoring ancient bridges between our two cultures."

You can fill out a form here. And let's discuss this topic in the comments too. I like the idea of great literature as a bridge between cultures. In this light, I would like to know what works in Arabic would be good for us Americans to read in English. Also, what kinds of books are most likely to bring different people together? Do you think the vivid pictures of the trials and triumphs of life in a particular place are most effective?

What various law types read in 2007.

Collected at Legal Times — including an entry by me.

ADDED: You have to register to read it, so let me copy what I wrote:

My favorite reading experience this year was walking around New York City and listening to the audio version of Eric Clapton’s autobiography [Clapton: The Autobiography] and then going directly into the audiobook of Alan Greenspan’s autobiography [The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World].

I loved the Clapton-Greenspan segue. Like Clapton, Greenspan found his first grounding in life in music. Clapton, the better musician, proceeded into the creative, destructive, disordered life of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. Greenspan got far enough down the musical path to play alongside Stan Getz, but he packed up his clarinet and moved into a brilliantly orderly life observing the creative destruction of capitalism. Now, as I continue to walk the streets of the city, the street corners keep reminding me of rock ’n’ roll, economics, and the delightful company of Eric and Alan.

Bill Clinton on Hillary Clinton: "Everything I'm saying here is my wife's position, not just mine."

Bill Clinton is out and about, burnishing his image, basking in the glow of attention. By the way, his wife is running for President. When he's not referring to that woman as "his wife," he likes to refer to her as "she":

"The reason she ought to be president, over and above her vision and her plans is that she has proven in every position she has ever had in life, whether it was in elected office or not, that she is a world-class genius in making positive changes in other people's lives."

Making positive changes in other people's lives.... It sounds so presidential so wifely.

World-class genius... Must we talk about that too? Two thoughts:

1. A man calls his wife a genius. Does it mean anything, even if he charges it up with the 90s modifier "world-class"? "World-class" actually detracts from it. If a man tells you his wife is a "great cook," are you more likely to believe it's anything more than the guy's preening about his own stature if he makes it "awesomely great"? If he tells you his wife looks like a model, does your mental image of her improve if he says she looks like a "super model"? A man is bragging about his woman: That places her ever more firmly in the position of his woman.

2. Remember the way people talked about John Kerry in 2004? Supposedly, he had a brilliant mind, full of "nuance" and "complexity." But, as I wrote at the time, the evidence was lacking. There was also some discussion back then about whether smarter actually is better for a President. But some people — dare I say, especially on the left? — are susceptible to the argument that the most intellectually brilliant candidate ought to win. And right now, these poor souls are being massaged by statements like Bill's about Hillary. So where's the evidence?

I've been reading Carl Bernstein's book "A Woman in Charge." Here's a passage:

By tenth grade, Hillary had realized that she was by no means the smartest member of her class, and that to compete at the top level of academic achievement she would have to work harder than others. She was an honor roll student by force of will, intense preparation, and dutiful study. Even with such extraordinary effort, her grade point average was too low to be among the top ten students in her class.

Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan's book "The Age of Turbulence" lavishes praise on Bill Clinton for his intellect (especially for his grasp of economics and his perception of how things would change in the future). Greenspan classes Bill Clinton with the smartest of all the Presidents he has known: Richard Nixon. Which brings us back to the point that "smartest" doesn't encapsulate what you really want in a President.

ADDED: I love found humor. I was just Googling around for some talk about the irritating adjective "world-class" — the usage panel does not accept it as "as a vague way of emphasizing magnitude or degree" — and I found this 2005 blog post from Brad Feld:

I heard the phrase "world class" three times today. I've decided to toss it on the scrap heap of "phrases that mean nothing to me anymore." I'm finishing up Friedman's The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century(which is awesome BTW - definitely a world class book – I’ll be done on my SF to Chicago trip Thursday night.) It dawned on me that the phrase "world class" isn't indexed against anything. No one ever says, "that's not world class, it's American class."...

In my first company, we talked briefly (I think about 60 seconds) about creating a mission "to be the best software consulting company in the world." After all the MIT / Brown / Wellesley people in my company laughed (“hey Brad, who gives a damn about a stupid vague unattainable mission like that?"), I / we realized that vapid phrases didn't inspire anything (except internal contempt). It took more than 60 seconds to come up with our mission, which was "We suck less."...

We delivered more often then not. So - while we never achieved that elusive "world class" status, we definitely sucked less most of the time. And - when I wandered down the hallways saying "guys - focus on sucking less - that's the key to our success", people rallied a lot more than if I had shouted "we are going to be world class" from the rooftops.

Of course, Bill Clinton can't be saying of Hillary, "She sucks less." But the truth is that's all most of us expect from a candidate, for them to suck less than the others.

"'Atlas Shrugged' is a celebration of life and happiness."

"Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."

So wrote Alan Greenspan in a letter to the editor of the NYT in 1957, the year the book was published and denounced by the newspaper as "written out of hate."

How incompetent is Harry Reid?

According to David Broder:

Hailed by his staff as "a strong leader who speaks his mind in direct fashion," Reid is assuredly not a man who misses many opportunities to put his foot in his mouth. In 2005, he attacked Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, as "one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington."

He called President Bush " a loser," then apologized. He said that Bill Frist, then Senate majority leader, had "no institutional integrity" because Frist planned to leave the Senate to fulfill a term-limits pledge. Then he apologized to Frist.

Most of these earlier gaffes were personal, bespeaking a kind of displaced aggressiveness on the part of the onetime amateur boxer. But Reid's verbal wanderings on the war in Iraq are consequential -- not just for his party and the Senate but for the more important question of what happens to U.S. policy in that violent country and to the men and women whose lives are at stake.

The Broder column is getting a lot of blog response. Some of it is generic babble, like this from Josh Marshall:

I really don't know whether I find it more painful or amusing to watch David Broder's quickening decline. But I'm going to go with amusing. Because clearly there's some deep streak of evil within me that gets a kick out of watching one man struggle so desperately for relevance and even coherence.

Yeah, Broder's old and you're sick of him. If you can't attack the argument, attack the man.