I'm not sure what the past practice of former Fed Chairmen was prior to Greenspan, but I can imagine that Greenspan wouldn't have appreciated Paul Volcker shooting his mouth off in ways that made his job more difficult. Greenspan is kind of the Rudy Guiliani of Wall Street, revered for keeping his cool in a crisis, but that doesn't make him a great economist or forecaster any more than it makes Rudy a good choice for President. Many people consider Greenspan's track record in reading the economy to be very average. At this point, after a long career, he should be writing a book, not making headlines.
One could never understand Greenspan when he was in office, suddenly he has amazing clarity! 30% chance. When he was in office he never gave such predictions. All predictions he gave were way off!! Even his "irrational exuberance" speech was made before the Dow rallied something like 200% (maybe I have the figure wrong, but it was a huge 2yr move). If anyone had listened to Greenspan you would have lost a great deal. And I think it is pretty bad manners to talk like this when Bernanke is now in charge. I know Greenspan has a book coming out soon, but this is cheap stuff to try and get attention http://lauristonletter.blogspot.com/
Don't discount the possibility that Greenspan is right, and that he actually may be downplaying the risk of problems ahead. The actual economic data is not pretty, folks.
I think putting a probability on it was stupid. It sounds like he is hedging his opinion. He should say recession is coming or not, not giving us odds. Not to mention these odds are absolutely not scientific...
guy on cnbc said this morning that his predictions have been way off in the past and that they could be off this time as well.
Greenspan is great. He is now a doddering emeritus who clearly is enjoying poking at the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve. I don't know what he's got against "Helicopter Ben" but I have to think it's like, "Uh Oh!!! What did Al say this time."
Didn't you know his speaking/consultancy fee is $100k for the normal speech... blah... blah... blah...and $150k if has the "R"word recession mentioned in his speach .....blah...blah...recession...blah..blah...