Dies at 100 years Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman

BarcelonaAlan Greenspan, the influential economist who directed monetary policy in the United States during his five terms as chairman of the Federal Reserve (the Fed, the US central bank), has died at the age of 100, NBC News reported this Monday. Greenspan was one of the most influential economists of the second half of the 20th century and one of the most prominent names within the neoliberal economic paradigm that began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which advocated for the independence of central banks, financial deregulation, free trade, tax cuts — especially for large fortunes and companies — and the privatization of public services and companies.

Greenspan was appointed head of the Fed in 1987, at the proposal of Ronald Reagan, who was then occupying the White House. The economist held the position with three of Reagan's successors as US president: George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, and George Bush Jr. He was replaced by Ben Bernanke at the helm of the Fed in 2006, just one year before the outbreak of the real estate and financial bubble that caused the biggest recession in the world since the Great Depression of the 1930s.