The story goes that Napoleon once said to his son: “You, my son, rule the world!” He then looked at those around him who had expressed astonishment and remarked: “I rule the world; your mother rules me and you rule your mother!”
This story can be applied to Alan Greenspan but not to the Federal Reserve Bank in America. The US rules the world; Bush rules the US and Greenspan rules Bush. Knowing this to be a fact, the first man that Bush visited after the election was Greenspan.
Bush knows well that this man, by moving his little finger, can make the whole world shiver or be happy or sad. For he controls the US economy and the US economy controls the world economy.
At its core the US is money and this money is the secret of US strength, economically, politically and militarily. That is why they call the man who controls this vast financial mountain the Maestro.
Greenspan has been at the helm of the US economy for some fourteen years. He was appointed head of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1987 during Reagan’s presidency. Since then, he has led the US economy through an era of prosperity that peaked during Clinton’s presidency.
Clinton in fact gave Greenspan credit for skillfully steering the economy through some tough times at the beginning of globalization and the fall of the Soviet Union. At the same time, however, he was able to push the US economy forward despite the number of economic crises affecting Japan, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Some analysts say that Greenspan’s economic decisions exported the crises to other countries so that in the end, the US economy would win. Greenspan, on the other hand, denies this and says that he does not understand politics as he is a man of numbers and formulas — though he does not deny that politics is driven by the economy.
He belongs to the old school that refutes inflation and sees that a real economy is based on productive world technology. What is the reason that keeps Greenspan job while presidents come and go all around him? The reason, experts say, is that his hands are clean.
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“Firefighting” by Elisa Wald will be the first novel set in the period after Black Tuesday in New York; its hero is a firefighter. The novel received much acclaim and great success when it was published last November. Hollywood has agreed to make a film of it, starring Pierce Brosnan. Elisa Wald spent six unsuccessful years trying to write a new novel. The Sept. 11 tragedy stimulated her creative talents and she wrote the novel whose hero, a firefighter and close friend, was buried and killed under the ruins of the twin towers in New York.
Patrick Brown, the hero, had previously rescued the author when her apartment, looking out on the World Trade Center, caught fire. She immortalized him in the novel, portraying him as the best and bravest of men. Many accused Elisa of building her fame over the bodies of victims of this tragedy and the family of the dead hero asked her to leave his name out of the book. Elisa however insisted on completing the novel and on dedicating it to the memory of her loved one.