"Greenspan tells us what to do. Someone should take him out and hang him"
About this Quote
Alan Greenspan, as longtime Federal Reserve chair, became a symbol of unelected power: interest rates decided behind closed doors, economic pain explained after the fact in dense jargon, and a public asked to treat it all as weather. Gibson’s line turns that diffuse frustration into a single target, collapsing structural complexity into a villain with a name. It’s populist storytelling: if someone is "telling us what to do", then someone must be "in charge", and if someone is in charge, they can be punished.
The subtext is a conspiracy-tinged suspicion of expertise. "Tells us" implies not advising but commanding; it smuggles in the idea that ordinary people are being managed, not represented. The violence is not a serious prescription so much as a signal flare to allies: I’m so fed up I’ll say the unsayable. That’s how radical talk often works socially - less blueprint than bonding ritual.
Still, the rhetoric is combustible. Lynching language drags political grievance into the register of elimination, not accountability. It doesn’t critique central banking; it performs contempt for the legitimacy of any institution that asks citizens to trust it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Anger |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Gibson, Hutton. (2026, January 15). Greenspan tells us what to do. Someone should take him out and hang him. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/greenspan-tells-us-what-to-do-someone-should-take-170727/
Chicago Style
Gibson, Hutton. "Greenspan tells us what to do. Someone should take him out and hang him." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/greenspan-tells-us-what-to-do-someone-should-take-170727/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Greenspan tells us what to do. Someone should take him out and hang him." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/greenspan-tells-us-what-to-do-someone-should-take-170727/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.




