To the editor: Alan Greenspan served as chair of the Federal Reserve for 18½ years, a tenure that spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations. During that time, he enjoyed broad approval from leaders in both major parties. That is why I was struck by how narrowly his obituary in the Los Angeles Times framed his legacy (“Alan Greenspan, longtime head of the Federal Reserve, dies at 100,” June 22).
The piece rightly notes the criticisms of his deregulatory philosophy and the role those ideas played in the 2008 crisis. Those arguments deserved to be mentioned. But there was no acknowledgment of the stability, crisis management and bipartisan respect that made him a consequential figure long before the housing bubble.
By leaning so heavily on the paper’s more progressive critiques, the article reduced a long and complicated career to a single point in time. Greenspan was a believer in markets, and he was a steady hand during turbulent moments. Yes, he benefited from timing, and yes, he later admitted his blind spots. But a figure who shaped economic policy across four administrations deserves a fuller accounting, an accounting that equally recognizes both the triumphs and the failures without treating either as the entire story.
Horace Morana, San Luis Obispo
..
To the editor: I never studied the “dismal science” and, like millions of other unschooled Americans, I hung on every word Greenspan said during the economic dilemmas that sprouted during his long tenure as Federal Reserve chair. I came to value his circumlocutions as strategy, just the way New York Mets manager Casey Stengel used speech after yet another loss on the baseball diamond to confuse his interlocutors.
Although Greenspan never uttered Stengel’s immortal words after the 1962 season when the Mets lost 120 games — “Can’t anybody here play this game?” — he might as well have, as he fielded some tricky plays from the Fed dugout. He provided mirth along with some comfort that all would be well. RIP, Mr. Greenspan.
Paul Bloustein, Cincinnati
