The Best of the Onion on Alan Greenspan

[Guy Berger]

Greenspan Comes Out Of Retirement For One More Interest Rate Hike

June 25, 2007 | Issue 43•26

WASHINGTON, DC—Confirming a rumor that first appeared in March on the FDIC Fan Forum message board, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan came out of retirement Tuesday to raise interest rates on federal funds by a quarter of a point.

"You may remember this one from 1989," said Greenspan, barely audible above the roar of an estimated crowd of 20,000 gathered in front of the Marriner S. Eccles Building. "But before I start, I think I'm gonna need [current Federal Reserve chairman] Ben [bernanke]'s help with this. C'mon up here, Ben."

Greenspan refused to comment on buzz that he was planning a five-nation comeback tour to stabilize international housing markets.

This one is actually apropos given the hype over his new book:

Screaming Japanese Schoolgirls Overturn Greenspan's Bus

October 10, 2001 | Issue 37•36

TOKYO—Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan described himself as "shaken but all right" Monday following an incident in which several thousand excited young Japanese fans mobbed and tipped over his tour bus after a speech at the Tokyo Dome. "Mr. Greenspan is at the height of his popularity in Japan right now," said Martine Engers, a publicist for the chairman, who is currently in the midst of a 41-city world tour. "And I guess we simply weren't prepared for this level of fan hysteria." Before military police restored order, thousands of frantically speculating youths drove the Nikkei average past 16,000.

Greenspan To Play 15 Unannounced Small-Club Shows

June 23, 1999 | Issue 35•24

WASHINGTON, DC—Fed chief Alan Greenspan announced Monday that he will make a series of 15 surprise appearances at small clubs this July and August. "Oh, man," said Wall Street Journal Washington Bureau correspondent Gary Perlich. "I've never seen The 'Span live. My buddy Jeff saw him back in '92 at the World Bank Conference On Recent Trends In Reserve Management in Geneva, and he said he blew the crowd away." The club dates are rumored to be a tune-up for a larger world tour in support of his hit report, The Pitfalls Of Increasingly Adversarial Trade Laws And Negotiating Practices In An Expanding World Economy (All 4 Love).

Edited September 19, 2007 by Guy

[Guy Berger]

Greenspan, Entourage Demolish Hotel Room

February 17, 1999 | Issue 35•06

LOS ANGELES—Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once again found himself in legal trouble Monday, when he and several members of his extensive entourage were arrested for allegedly destroying a penthouse suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Above: Fed chief Alan Greenspan is led to a holding cell following his arrest for trashing a hotel room. It is his third such arrest in as many years.

Hotel officials say Greenspan, in town to address an annual convention of Federal Reserve District Bank presidents, caused an estimated $8,500 in damages to the room, the surrounding hallway and the swimming-pool area.

Said Beverly Hills Hotel manager Giles Laurent: "The television screen and cabinet had apparently been kicked in. Two chairs were thrown out the window. The mattress was ripped and its stuffing was flung all over the room, as well as into the hallway." Laurent added that minutes before police arrived, Greenspan, with the help of Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, pushed a vending machine off the balcony overlooking the hotel's swimming pool.

During his two-day stay at the posh hotel, Greenspan also accumulated a $781.55 room-service bill, which he has refused to pay until March 1, when he says interest rates on Deutsche Bundesbank bonds will rise to a more favorable 4.64 percent.

Witnesses to Greenspan's behavior during the days leading up to Monday's arrest said the 72-year-old head of the Federal Open Market Committee was in an unusually volatile mood.

"Upon arriving Friday, Mr. Greenspan demanded that four large bowls of M&Ms be delivered to his room, with all the orange ones removed," Beverly Hills Hotel concierge Alexander Poole said. "Then, when he got to his room and saw the bowls, he flew into a rage, knocking over lamps and screaming that he wanted the green M&Ms taken out, not the orange ones."

The famous Beverly Hills Hotel, site of the Fed chief's latest brush with the law.

Greenspan got into more trouble Saturday night, when he, Fed Vice-Chair Alice Rivlin and several other members of his inner circle visited the trendy L.A. night spot The Viper Room. Clubgoers reported seeing Greenspan, still high off the dollar's late rally against the yen Friday afternoon, shout obscenities and throw ashtrays at the club's DJ. When security personnel attempted to restrain him, Greenspan became belligerent, yelling, "I'm Alan Fucking Greenspan," and vowing to put bouncer Frank Rizzo in a "hurt bracket." The incident is already being compared to his infamous July 1997 fistfight with John Kenneth Galbraith at New York's China Club.

According to Federal Reserve Board insiders, Greenspan, buoyed by the U.S. economy's robust 5 percent growth rate in 1998, as well as flattering cover stories in Barron's, Forbes and Time, has grown increasingly megalomaniacal in recent months.

"He'll spend hours talking about how he's the greatest economist who ever lived, how he's 'bigger than Keynes,'" said one member of the Fed Board of Governors who wished to remain anonymous. "Every time he prevents economic disaster in Brazil or Indonesia by manipulating interest rates, his bloated ego just swells even more. It's just the sort of irrational exuberance he himself once warned against."

Monday's arrest is only the latest in a long string of legal troubles for the controversial Greenspan, who has had 22 court dates since becoming Fed chief in 1987. Economists recall his drunken 1994 appearance on CNN's Moneyline, during which he unleashed a profanity-laden tirade against Bureau of Engraving & Printing director Larry Rolufs and punched host Lou Dobbs when he challenged Greenspan's reluctance to lower interest rates. In November 1993, he was arrested after running shirtless through D.C. traffic while waving a gun. And some world-market watchers believe the international gold standard has still not recovered from a May 1998 incident in which he allegedly exposed his genitals on the floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The Tokyo case is still pending.

[Guy Berger]

This one was the cleverest:

Fed to Make Interest Rates Undulate Relaxingly

August 21, 1996 | Issue 30•02

WASHINGTON, DC—In a major step toward establishing a more "soothing and peaceful" U.S. economy by Fiscal Year 1998, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan announced yesterday that he will make the prime lending rate undulate relaxingly, moving back and forth in a restful, wavelike motion.

Noting the severely jarring ups and downs that have characterized the nation's economy over the last 18 months, Greenspan told a meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee:

"We will manipulate the money supply in such a way that Americans feel as though they are being pleasantly lofted on a gentle ocean wave, up and down, up and down, crest following trough and trough following crest, over and over and over, until they are floating rhythmically, happily, dreamily, on an undulating sea of economic prosperity."

Said noted Harvard University economist Laurence Stockbridge: "Ahhhhhh."

If successful, Greenspan's fiscal policy should greatly increase the soothing, stress-reductive and pleasantly rocking qualities of our nation's economic graphs, and also significantly reduce sensations of grating, annoying or shrill alarmism on the part of economists themselves, long considered to be one of America's leading causes of hypertension and migraine headache pain.

Greenspan's announcement was greeted by bipartisan enthusiasm.

"In the past four years, I believe the U.S. has made strong economic progress," President Clinton said. "I do admit, however, that much of this progress has been attained in a somewhat rough, herky-jerky fashion. Mr. Greenspan's plan should help make the U.S. economy once again the world's most restful."

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Thomas Ronson (R-PA) also praised the new policy, saying it will "no doubt 'take the edge off,' removing a lot of those jagged, pointy lines, the ones with all the sharp peaks and valleys, from our nation's graphs."

By and large, Wall Street analysts are expressing pleasant sensations of muscular relaxation at the Fed's move, as well. Ted Danziger, Economic Policy Analyst for Merrill Lynch, said yesterday that the shift in policy is "already having a strong effect, especially down there in the lumbar region... Oooh, yeah, right there. Yessssss."

Greenspan explained that his plan, which will involve a regular, waterbed-like vibration of currency issuance and lending rates, was inspired by Japanese economist Tokuba Mashimoto, who told him Japan's success was "due to the incorporation of restful shiatsu techniques in national fiscal policy."

Mashimoto also strongly advised Greenspan to take deep breaths and exhale slowly, and cited reclining in a prone position with gentle caressing from a loved one or professional prostitute as a "particularly effective economic policy."

[catesta]

hehe

Investors Stake Out Greenspan's House For Signs Of Rate Increase

May 12, 2004 | Issue 40•19

WASHINGTON, DC—Investors have been staking out Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's home in an effort to gather any clues that Greenspan will institute an increase in the interest rate, neighborhood sources reported Tuesday. "Right now, Mr. Greenspan is applying a second coat of Turtle Wax to his Lexus," mutual-fund investor Ted Iger said, as he squatted behind an oak tree. "Maybe he plans to sell the car before raising lending rates." Iger said a major household purchase would corroborate theories he has about the microwave box Greenspan's wife carried to the curb Sunday.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

This one was the cleverest:

Laugh? I thought they'd never dry.

MG

[7/4]

This is too funny. Greenspan as a celb. An unstable rock star.