Teach kids Alan Greenspan, Harry Potter or, who?
A Review of Age of Turbulence - Part 1 (of 3)

By Larochelle & L'Hirondelle -- Nov. 2007

"This book is in part a detective story."
-- "The Age of Turbulence", back cover,

Alan Greenspan's new 500 page book Age of Turbulence; Adventures in a New World is described as being part "detective story". Greenspan was chair of the US Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He is considered the "leading authority on American domestic economic and monetary policy" or simply, "The Maestro" (wiki).

Putting Greenspan's book in political and economic context also requires also a bit of detective work into the world of warring conservative ideas.

"It is not the correct thing to scold children for asking questions:
this is about as reasonable as to scold them
for breathing or thinking."
--Florence Howe Hall

"Reporters are paid to ask questions and politicians are paid by taxpayers to answer them. Answering questions -- whoever happens to be asking them -- is hardly worthy of being described as pandering. It's called explaining."
-- Tamara King, Winnipeg Sun, June 1, 2006

"All right. With me now, Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chief and the author of the new book, 'Age of Turbulence', flying off bookstore shelves right now, No. 1 on Amazon." -- Neil Cavuto's "Your World with Neil Cavuto,"
FOX News: "We Report. You Decide"

"Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush and Republicans."
-- Townhall.com, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 15, 2007

"Alan Greenspan, Wizard or Villian?"
-- BusinessWeek Online

"With a few flicks of his magic wand, Harry Potter has turned Rowling into a billionaire (we estimate she's worth $1 billion)."
-- Forbes.com, "J.K. Rowling And The Billion-Dollar Empire"

"Harry Potter is flying off the shelf
and into the hands of all students."
-- Grand Prairie Independent School District, "Library Notes"

"Pope Benedict XVI's chief exorcist, Rev. Gabriele Amorth,
has called fictional wizard-in-training Harry Potter
the 'king of darkness, the devil.'"
-- CBC Arts, September 3, 2006

 

"The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank annual symposium
at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is a ritual in which central bankers
from major economies all over the world,
backed by their supporting cast of court jesters masquerading as monetary economists, privately rationalize their unmerited yet enormous power
over the fate of the global economy by publicly confessing
that while their collective knowledge is grossly inadequate
for the daunting challenge of the task entrusted to them,
their faith-based dogma nevertheless should remain above question."
-- Henry C K Liu, "Greenspan, the Wizard of Bubbleland"

 

Next: Part 2