Ex-Fed chair Greenspan dies
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Alan Greenspan, the jazz-playing U.S. Federal Reserve chair who was celebrated for engineering a decade of prosperity but later shared the blame for a devastating financial crisis, died Monday at 100.
Greenspan died from complications of Parkinson's disease, said his wife of 29 years, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
"To me he was my husband, who shaped my life from our very first date in 1984," Mitchell wrote. "He had 'irrational exuberance' for baseball, the Washington Commanders, tennis, golf, and music, especially jazz. He will be remembered for his brilliance and his kindness. Being his life partner was the joy of my life."
The Fed said Greenspan helped to cement trust in the Fed during a time of economic uncertainty.
"Under his leadership, the Federal Reserve achieved a sustained era of price stability that supported economic growth and helped anchor the public's confidence in the institution," the central bank said in a statement Monday.
In 18 1/2 years at the Fed, Greenspan presided over a breathtaking surge in stock prices and a 10-year economic boom that started in March 1991. He was celebrated as "Maestro'' and "Oracle'' -- an economic virtuoso whose every utterance was dissected for clues on where interest rates and the economy were headed.
The intense scrutiny of Greenspan's intentions gave birth to new Fed folklore: the "Briefcase Indicator." A stuffed briefcase carried into Fed meetings implied changes might be afoot because Greenspan carried with him charts and research to make his point.
But his reputation began to suffer almost as soon as he left the Fed in 2006. American housing prices tumbled rapidly, causing huge losses for banks that had repackaged mortgage loans into a dizzying array of complex securities. The growing financial crisis pushed the U.S. economy into the Great Recession of 2007-2009 -- the deepest downturn since the 1930s.
Critics blamed the devastation on Greenspan's easy money policies and his support for deregulated financial markets. Greenspan himself later acknowledged "I made a mistake'' in assuming that banks could essentially regulate themselves.
Born in Washington Heights, the young Greenspan was a math whiz who was trotted out by his mother to show off for visitors.
"I was a prop at parties,'' he said in a 2007 interview with PBS NewsHour. A Julliard School dropout, he worked as a professional musician in his teens, playing clarinet and saxophone alongside the future jazz great Stan Getz. It was a humbling experience that persuaded the young Greenspan to seek another line of work.
In the years after stepping down as Fed chairman in 2006 just shy of his 80th birthday, Greenspan kept busy doing what he loved most -- following the economic data. He ran his own consulting firm, Greenspan Associates, through which he dispensed advice to Wall Street clients.