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NY Post 1/31 John Crudele
It's astounding that the chairman of the Federal Reserve reportedly could get as much as $500,000 an hour for his consulting services once he leaves office.
As far as I know, this guy can't tell a joke, doesn't do card tricks or make balloon animals — and he should come with the label warning: "May induce drowsiness."
But Alan Greenspan — the man with the self-admitted conundrum — could still be worth half a million for every 60 minutes of advice he shovels to anyone with too many dollars and not enough sense.
Today is Greenspan's last meeting at the Fed.
The betting is that he'll raise interest rates in his fond farewell and that his colleagues — under the questionable leadership of the White House's handpicked successor, Ben "I'll Just Print Money" Bernanke — will slap the economy with another rate hike in March.
But the odds of Greenspan making a lot of money in his post-Fed years is unquestioned.
Here's why I'd be overpaying for the guy's time even at a finn an hour.
* No member of the Fed in recent memory has ever helped anyone on Wall Street make money.
Back in the '90s Bear Stearns hired exiting Fed governor Wayne Angell to dispense wisdom to its clients.
He quietly disappeared into his own consulting business two years ago.
* Fed Vice Chairman Manny Johnson joined a Washington consulting firm called Smick Medley in the '90s and quickly became the marquee name.
For a time Wall Street pondered the firm's every pronouncement until none ever came true.
* Before he joined the Fed, Greenspan himself was notoriously bad at making market predictions while heading his own firm, Townsend-Greenspan.
It was only when he rose to power as the Fed chairman that his reputation overtook reality.
As Fed chairman, he's already admitted that the financial markets are a conundrum to him.
Paying that amount of dough would be especially ludicrous given that the conundrum is of Greenspan's own making.
First let me explain the conundrum: Greenspan has been trying to get interest rates to go higher, but they won't oblige.
So in essence — and Greenspan would never admit this — the Federal Reserve has lost power over the two things it is obliged to control, interest rates and the U.S. currency.
True, Greenspan was good at solving problems. But he was often the one who caused the problem in the first place.
It was Greenspan who helped cause the stock market to bubble in the late 1990s.
And while he did try to use a catchy phrase like "irrational exuberance" to stop Wall Street's speculation and minimize its inevitable pain, Greenspan was too late in taking action.
And then he compounded the error by buying into the Y2K hype by adding loads of liquidity into an already flooded banking system.
If anyone is considering hiring Greenspan, they should first look at his own investment history.
Greenspan is estimated to have lost between 5 percent and 6 percent of his investments between 2003 and 2004, according to data collected by the Financial Market Center. And it looks as if he took another big hit last year.
So, here's my advice to Wall Street. Hire the guy, put him in a cage and let your clients poke him with a stick.
It's astounding that the chairman of the Federal Reserve reportedly could get as much as $500,000 an hour for his consulting services once he leaves office.
As far as I know, this guy can't tell a joke, doesn't do card tricks or make balloon animals — and he should come with the label warning: "May induce drowsiness."
But Alan Greenspan — the man with the self-admitted conundrum — could still be worth half a million for every 60 minutes of advice he shovels to anyone with too many dollars and not enough sense.
Today is Greenspan's last meeting at the Fed.
The betting is that he'll raise interest rates in his fond farewell and that his colleagues — under the questionable leadership of the White House's handpicked successor, Ben "I'll Just Print Money" Bernanke — will slap the economy with another rate hike in March.
But the odds of Greenspan making a lot of money in his post-Fed years is unquestioned.
Here's why I'd be overpaying for the guy's time even at a finn an hour.
* No member of the Fed in recent memory has ever helped anyone on Wall Street make money.
Back in the '90s Bear Stearns hired exiting Fed governor Wayne Angell to dispense wisdom to its clients.
He quietly disappeared into his own consulting business two years ago.
* Fed Vice Chairman Manny Johnson joined a Washington consulting firm called Smick Medley in the '90s and quickly became the marquee name.
For a time Wall Street pondered the firm's every pronouncement until none ever came true.
* Before he joined the Fed, Greenspan himself was notoriously bad at making market predictions while heading his own firm, Townsend-Greenspan.
It was only when he rose to power as the Fed chairman that his reputation overtook reality.
As Fed chairman, he's already admitted that the financial markets are a conundrum to him.
Paying that amount of dough would be especially ludicrous given that the conundrum is of Greenspan's own making.
First let me explain the conundrum: Greenspan has been trying to get interest rates to go higher, but they won't oblige.
So in essence — and Greenspan would never admit this — the Federal Reserve has lost power over the two things it is obliged to control, interest rates and the U.S. currency.
True, Greenspan was good at solving problems. But he was often the one who caused the problem in the first place.
It was Greenspan who helped cause the stock market to bubble in the late 1990s.
And while he did try to use a catchy phrase like "irrational exuberance" to stop Wall Street's speculation and minimize its inevitable pain, Greenspan was too late in taking action.
And then he compounded the error by buying into the Y2K hype by adding loads of liquidity into an already flooded banking system.
If anyone is considering hiring Greenspan, they should first look at his own investment history.
Greenspan is estimated to have lost between 5 percent and 6 percent of his investments between 2003 and 2004, according to data collected by the Financial Market Center. And it looks as if he took another big hit last year.
So, here's my advice to Wall Street. Hire the guy, put him in a cage and let your clients poke him with a stick.