Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Butterfly Effect In Action

Whether or not you blame former Fed chair Alan Greenspan for the current crisis, economics wasn't his first career choice, says Joe Queenan in the June 29th Weekly Standard:
[F]ew Americans are aware that a career forecasting GDP and setting interest rates and tamping down the nation's money supply was not Greenspan's dream as a child. Rather, he dreamed of growing up to be a jazz musician.

Had those dreams borne fruit, the global financial system might never have been brought to its knees.

Here are the known facts. Midway through World War II Greenspan enrolled at Juilliard but soon dropped out and took a job with a roving dance band. His instrument of choice was the tenor saxophone.
The path from Mingus to Coltrane to Rand is--if true--the wildest coming-of-age tale ever. Trust me--read the whole thing.

3 comments:

bobn said...

This is garbage, as 5 minutes with google and 5 minutes ar pbs.org can demonstrate.

bobn said...

Can we assume all your other cites are this good?

@nooil4pacifists said...

Few comments are more annoying than those proclaiming easily discoverable error while omitting a link. Except those who do the foregoing while disregarding a relevant caveat in the post itself.