Dies at 100 years of age Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman

BarcelonaAlan Greenspan, the influential economist who guided U.S. monetary policy during his five terms as chairman of the Federal Reserve (the Fed, the U.S. central bank), has died at the age of 100, NBC News reported on 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, advocating for central bank independence, financial deregulation, free trade, tax cuts — especially for the wealthy and corporations — and the privatization of public services and companies.

Greenspan was appointed as head of the Fed in 1987, at the suggestion of Ronald Reagan, who was then in the White House. The economist remained in office under three of Reagan's successors as U.S. 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 triggered the greatest recession in the world since the Great Depression of the 1930s.