by silverflake » Sat Sep 27, 2025 12:34 pm
In a statement before the "COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES SENATE" in 2005 Greenspan said this (he was referring to SS in this instance)
"We can guarantee cash payments as far out as you like whatever size you like but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power"
Equally interesting from 1997 (bold by me):
"Central banks can issue currency, a non-interest-bearing claim on the government, effectively without limit. They can discount loans and other assets of banks or other private depository institutions, thereby converting potentially illiquid private assets into riskless claims on the government in the form of deposits at the central bank.
That all of these claims on government are readily accepted reflects the fact that a government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. A fiat money system, like the ones we have today, can produce such claims without limit. To be sure, if a central bank produces too many, inflation will inexorably rise as will interest rates, and economic activity will inevitably be constrained by the misallocation of resources induced by inflation. If it produces too few, the economy's expansion also will presumably be constrained by a shortage of the necessary lubricant for transactions. Authorities must struggle continuously to find the proper balance.
It was not always thus. For most of the period prior to the early 1930s, obligations of governments in major countries were payable in gold. This meant the whole outstanding debt of government was subject to redemption in a medium, the quantity of which could not be altered at the will of government. Hence, debt issuance and budget deficits were constrained by the potential market response to an inflated economy. It was even possible in such a monetary regime for a government to become insolvent."
Alan Greenspan: Central Banking and Global Finance (January 14, 1997)
Apparently somewhere along the way he got twisted into a central government banker. Sadly.