Alan Greenspan


Alan Greenspan

Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He was chairman during both the 1987 stock market crash and the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s. In both circumstances, he saw to it that the Federal Reserve served as a source of liquidity in order to ensure the global economy continued to function. He kept interest rates low during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. He was criticized during the late 2000s recession for supporting the unfettered free market policies that led to the housing bubble and unregulated derivatives. He became a friend and follower of Ayn Rand in the 1950s and remains controversial today.