Wealth & Money Quote by Alan Greenspan

For a man celebrated (and blamed) for moving markets with a raised eyebrow, Greenspan’s shrug is doing a lot of work. “I don’t know where the stock market is going” is a ritual disclaimer: the technocrat’s version of washing your hands before touching the levers. It signals humility and inoculates him against the charge that he’s jawboning prices upward. Then comes the pivot: if stocks keep rising, it will outmuscle “anything we’ve been talking about.” That’s not uncertainty; it’s a quiet hierarchy of power.

The intent is to reframe economic stimulus away from fiscal packages, policy programs, and congressional horse-trading, toward the wealth effect and confidence channel. Greenspan is effectively saying: you can debate multipliers all day, but nothing juice-ups consumption like people opening their brokerage statements and feeling richer. Subtext: in an economy increasingly geared toward asset appreciation, markets aren’t just a barometer of growth - they’re a generator of it.

Context matters because it exposes the political convenience of the claim. Elevating the stock market as the ultimate stimulus flatters Wall Street’s centrality while giving policymakers cover: if equities can do the heavy lifting, elected officials can avoid messier choices about wages, public investment, or inequality. The line also contains a warning disguised as optimism. If the economy is leaning this hard on rising asset prices, it’s vulnerable to reversals - and the “stimulus” can turn into a shock overnight. Greenspan’s trademark: a half-denial that still manages to consecrate the market as the main character.