THE AGE OF TURBULENCE:
Adventures in a New World
Alan Greenspan
The Penguin Press
Memoir
ISBN: 9781594201318

On September 11, 2001, Alan Greenspan had been Chairman of the Federal Reserve for 14 years. Traveling overseas on business, Greenspan "worried about my colleagues at the Federal Reserve. Were they safe? And their families? The staff would be scrambling to respond to the crisis. This attack --- the first on US soil since Pearl Harbor --- would throw the country into turmoil. The question I needed to focus on was whether the economy would be damaged."

By 1957 Greenspan was so astute at forecasting economic projections that he predicted the following year would be terrible for the steel industry. When the recession hit in 1958, Tom Patton, the CEO of Republic Steel, gave Greenspan the credit he deserved, although Republic did not follow his advice.

We follow Greenspan literally through his life in THE AGE OF TURBULENCE while gaining real insight into the man behind some of the most important economic decisions this country has seen in the past 40+ years. On discussing objectivism with Ayn Rand, Greenspan recalls that "talking with Ayn Rand was like starting a game of chess thinking I was good, and suddenly finding myself in checkmate." As world economies develop, crash and reinvent themselves, Greenspan has his finger on the pulse of these changing economies. An important world leader, he also enjoys playing jazz and tennis, and has dated well-known women like Barbara Walters, with whom he is still friends.

As part of an economic contingent of advisors to Russia during the shift from communism, Greenspan remarks, "I was fascinated to see these events unfold… Until the wall fell and the need to develop market economies out of the rubble of Eastern Europe's central-planning regimes became apparent, few economists had been thinking about the institutional foundations that free markets need."

Greenspan spent many years in college, attaining his bachelors, masters and finally PhD at New York University. Obviously a brilliant man, his self-confidence as a leader was not always at the forefront. "From my earliest days, I had viewed myself as an expert behind the scenes, and implementer of orders rather than the leader. It took the stock market crisis of 1987 to make me feel comfortable making critical political decisions."

Greenspan ends the book by giving us a glimpse of the future through his eyes, with his perceptions. And here we learn about his predictions for the future of our economic security. "Why is this relationship between the rule of law and material wellbeing seemingly so immutable? In my experience, it is rooted in a key aspect of human nature. In life, unless we take action, we perish. But action risks unforeseen consequences. The extent to which people are willing to take risks depends on the reward they think they may gain."

    --- Reviewed by Marge Fletcher

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