ALAN GREENSPAN
The 2 EARTH, 1 WATER Personality

The Expressive/ The Wave

Alan Greenspan served five terms as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He originally took office as chairman on August 11, 1987 to fill an unexpired term as a member of the Board of Governors. His last term ended on January 31, 2006. He was appointed chairman by four different presidents.

Greenspan had many fans and many critics. He was a friend of Ayn Rand and followed her philosophy of “Objectivism”. She offered solutions to both sides of his nature.

I remember watching him on TV making his forecasts and sharing his thoughts. He often seemed to struggle, feel torn, continually compromising between two different ways of looking at the concerns at the time. After going off the gold standard, he was quoted as saying he thought the US did extremely well without a central bank and with a gold standard. This change seemed outside his comfort zone. Besides that, people were held prisoner by the Federal Reserve’s actions. This was a very tumultuous time, and the push pull within him played out for the public to see.

He “responded to his critics… defended his ideology as applied to his conceptual and policy framework, which, among other things, prohibited him from exerting real pressure against the burgeoning housing bubble or, in his words, ‘leaning against the wind.’” Greenspan argued, “My view of the range of dispersion of outcomes has been shaken, but not my judgment that free competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies.” He concluded, “We have tried regulation ranging from heavy to central planning. None meaningfully worked. Do we wish to retest the evidence?”

One of his critics called him a “classic con man” who, through political savvy, “flattered and bullshitted his way up the Matterhorn of American power.”

His 2 Earth nature continually focused on being frugal, practical, and fiscally responsible. When all hell broke loose in the stock and housing market, Alan Greenspan sat in the middle and had to navigate the volatility and try to explain “The Story” playing out in our nation. It was clear he was torn between regulations being restrictive or necessary as the events played out.

His 1 Water nature would want to be more expansive, with less regulation. His 2 Earth nature would have struggled with ways to create stability, fix the problem, and add structure. Balance is always an earth/water struggle, especially when it comes to money.