It has been a common line on Wall Street and in Washington: Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, should have gotten out while on top last year, when the economy was still booming and his legacy as the embodiment of prosperity was secure.
Good thing he didn't.
Peering into the economic and financial chasms that are byproducts of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it is clear that markets are in for a rough ride and that policy-makers will need skill and luck to avert a global recession.
It is also clear that many of those policy makers lack authority or credibility.
In Japan, the government has proved utterly ineffectual in coping with what amounts to a decade-long recession, and the performance of the quasi-independent Bank of Japan has been, if anything, worse.
Consumed with establishing its inflation-fighting credibility as Europe prepares to start its common currency, the new European Central Bank appears blind to the growing economic risks among its member countries, and has stubbornly resisted aggressive monetary easing this year.
And in the US, the Bush administration's team is green.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, a former chief executive of Alcoa, has never established himself with the financial markets. His blunt, unscripted style has won him plaudits in some quarters, but it has also gotten him into consistent trouble. Early in his tenure, he unsettled markets by deviating from well-established language used by the government to keep the dollar strong. He focused on issues, like workplace safety within the Trea-sury Department, that seemed far removed from the pressing matters of the day. This month, he offered economic forecasts lower than the administration's official projections.
As for President Bush, he has never seemed comfortable with or particularly engaged in the mechanics or theory of finance and economics. Anyway, Bush has other things on his mind. That leaves Greenspan.
The Fed chairman's reputation has taken a bit of a beating this year as the economy has decelerated and the stock market gains of recent years have turned to losses. He has been blamed for raising interest rates too much last year, and for not cutting them fast enough this year. He has been criticized for subscribing to and promoting the new-economy paradigm in the face of evidence that the boom of the late 1990s was nothing more than a bubble. But he still has a breadth of experience and a reserve of credibility that no one else in the world can match when it comes to an economic crisis.
"I don't think he on his own can save us from recession if one is coming," said Janet L. Yellen, a former Fed governor who also was chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton White House. "But I think it is very reassuring to have someone at the helm as experienced and respected as he is."
Greenspan has not been seen publicly since the terrorist attacks. After being hustled home from Switzerland on an Air Force jet, he holed up in his Fed office. He has no doubt spent the time delving into the condition of the markets, taking soundings from business executives and consulting with his counterparts from around the world. It is the kind of challenge that Greenspan has spent a career preparing for.
"We're very fortunate that he decided not to quit while he was ahead," Yellen said. "This is probably more important to him than whether he went out at the peak."
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique