roger w ferguson, jr : statement on renomination to the board of governors of the federal reserve system testimony of mr roger w ferguson jr, vice - chairman of the board of governors of the us federal reserve system, before the committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs, us senate, 13 june 2001. * * * chairman sarbanes, senator gramm, and members of the committee, i am pleased to appear before you today as president bush's nominee to serve on the board of governors of the federal reserve system. i am honored that the president has nominated me to serve a full term as a member of the board. as a governor, i am particularly mindful that the policy decisions of the federal reserve influence the economic well - being of all americans. it has been my privilege to serve our fellow citizens in this capacity since 1997, giving this role my undivided attention, and i hope to be able to continue in that service. during my tenure we have faced a rapidly changing environment in many of our areas of responsibility, and i would like to review briefly some of those developments and our responses to them. congress has given the federal reserve three monetary policy objectives : maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long - term interest rates. we have viewed these objectives as congruent with a goal of maximum sustainable growth, which can occur only in the context of long - run price stability. fostering financial conditions in which americans can realize the full productive potential of our economy has presented a number of challenges in recent years. the most important developments have been a step - up in the advance of technology – both in terms of the production of new goods and the more effective harnessing of past innovations – and a rapid accumulation of physical capital. these developments have made workers increasingly more productive. but faster productivity growth fed back on the demand for goods and services in ways that complicated the calibration of monetary policy. faster growth in productivity and the reactions of businesses and households to this acceleration of productivity have combined with other forces - particularly those associated with the growing interconnectedness of the global economy - to require substantial adjustments in the federal reserve's policy interest rate in recent years. but those adjustments in our policy instrument have been in the service of our objective of promoting maximum sustainable growth. making monetary policy has been only part of the challenge. during my tenure at the federal reserve we have also worked diligently to communicate to the public what we are doing with policy and why. transparency

alan greenspan : financial literacy remarks by mr alan greenspan, chairman of the board of governors of the us federal reserve system, at the federal reserve bank of chicago ’ s money smart conference, chicago, illinois ( via videoconference ), 13 may 2004. * * * this morning i should like to broaden the focus of financial literacy to the education you are going to need more generally in the years ahead. within the next several years the vast majority of you will have completed your formal schooling and begun careers in private business, government, or the nonprofit sector. i suspect most of you have not as yet figured out what career you would like to pursue. but as with all the generations of teenagers that have gone before you, something will grab your interest and engage you. with me it was music. i was entranced with sound and visualized myself playing with the likes of the glenn miller orchestra or becoming another benny goodman. i practiced clarinet and saxophone three to five hours a day and, following graduation from high school, toured the country for a couple of years with a dance band. i was a good amateur but only an average professional. i soon realized that there was a limit to how far i could rise in the music business, so i left the band and enrolled at new york university. during my dance band years i spent the twenty - minute breaks from playing in reading. i became intrigued by books on finance, and, hence, at nyu i majored first in finance and, as my interest broadened, in economics and in what was then called mathematical statistics and now econometrics. in retrospect, that choice probably was not surprising since math was my most engaging course in high school. i graduated and joined an economic research organization. but my education did not stop. i earned a masters degree and went on to further studies at night at columbia university. at the age of twenty - seven i joined a very small wall street firm as a partner and was essentially in charge of making it grow. it did, and i eventually became the senior partner. but twelve hours a day at work left little time for school, and my aspirations to earn a ph. d. faded, at least for a time. however, the pursuit of my profession as an economist and the head of a consulting firm required that i broaden my knowledge, and i proceeded to read books, not only on economics and mathematics but also on philosophy, history, physics, and astronomy. i was