The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World - Alan Greenspan - Book Review

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World By Alan Greenspan - Audiobook version

This is a very long volume. Thankfully, the audiobook version was very well produced and did not induce sleep despite the mundane subject that it covers - economics. Actually that is not quite true, because although Alan is the personification of an economist and the tone his memoir sounds very much like the his congress briefings, he covers a lot of history and current events. After all, he is the ultimate insider who was thick in the middle of so much action in the recent times.

He argues forcefully this book behalf of market based economy, rule of law, strong property rights, free trade and globalism. He expresses disgust at Nixon and George W's presidencies. He doesn't have much of an opinion for Bush Sr. He adores Bill Clinton as he probably achieved the most under his presidency. He readily admits that Iraq was was about oil. He proclaims that "the Republicans traded power for principles and ended up with none", which rings very true. He certainly does not come across as the "Republican Hack" as Harry Reid called him.

When i finished the book, i got a very good insight into how the macroeconomics works and i got a very good introduction into how the government regulates the monetary system. I am now very curious to read Adam Smith's book. I am going to start with P.J. O'Rourke's The Wealth of Nations.

I thought his long term economic preditions are a wash. They are very much similar to his famous Fedspeak pronouncements. It was like if we don't run into any crisis and if we dont screw up, we will do just fine in the long run. Thank you very much Nostradamus!

o I very much agree with his stressing of the "Rule of Law" and strong property rights as a key foundation to the Wealth of a nation.
o He seems to be still convinced that Gold Standard is a good idea. Similarly there are several instances where he seem to adhere to ideas that have more to do with Libertarian purity than being more practical.
o Regardless of his convictions he seems willing to set them aside to arrive at practical solutions under the rules of the economic system we have setup for ourselves. His libertarian bent and strong advocacy of free market economy seems to have checked the tendency of politicians to meddle in the economy.
o His argument that Adam Smith's approach won over Keynesian, Fabian and Marxist economic philosophies is very convincing. Having grown up in the centrally planned economy of India, I still remember the days when we had to stop the building of our house because of the cement scarcity. We had used up our quota, which was grossly inadequate for the building requirements, and we had to wait for the next cycle to get our next quota.
o His survey of the major economies was very interesting. He is very bullish on china, not very impressed with India, understandably so.
o He is very much against the dependence on foreign oil and optimistic about the technologies which can reduce that like: plugin hybrids. And the surprising thing was that he was not opposed to introducing taxes in order to promote and accelarate the adoption of green technologies that will reduce our oil dependence. I thought that was remarkable coming from a staunch libertarian.

However, he certainly seemed to have made compromises in order to remain in power. The constant support of Republican administrations, even when they pursued bad economic policies is a good example. He strongly supported Republicans even when Nixon imposed price controls. He supported George W Bush's tax cut even when the balanced budget was clearly resulting in widespread prosperity for the country and the tax cuts essentially would bring back the deficits.

Overall a very worthwhile book for understanding the world that we live in and the political and economic context of our generation. I highly recommend it!