The Fed can change how things look, not how things are.

Logic makes as poor an argument against a boom as it does against a love affair.

I have unlimited faith in the American people taking care of themselves – if they are told what to do and why.

Growth at an exceptional rate is a red flag in banking. It is hard enough to manage an ordinary bank; to control a sprouting weed is well-nigh impossible. If loans are expanding too quickly, the lending officers have probably been saying ‘yes’ too frequently.

It’s about bums on seats. If nobody wants to listen to what you are doing, it kind of defeats the purpose really, doesn’t it?

The essential Greenspan legacy . . . is the idea that the Fed will allow nothing to go really wrong.

Successful investing is about having people agree with you ... later.

Central banks have gotten out of the central banking business and into the central planning business, meaning that they are devoted to raising up-if they can-economic growth and employment through the dubious means of suppressing interest rates and printing money. The nice thing about gold is that you can't print it.

To me the gold price takes the form of a very uncomplicated formula, and all you have to do is divide one by 'n.' And 'n', I'm glad you ask, 'n' is the world's trust in the institution of paper money and in the capacity of people like Ben Bernanke to manage it. So the smaller 'n', the bigger the price. One divided by a receding number is the definition of a bull market.

[C]apitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich.