Read

Alan Greenspan on the Crisis and Coolidge

In an hour-long interview with the Associated Press this week, Alan Greenspan spoke about his new book, "The Map and the Territory," and...

In an hour-long interview with the Associated Press this week, Alan Greenspan spoke about his new book, "The Map and the Territory," and about being "intellectually shocked" by the 2008 financial crisis and the failure of "rational financial risk management."

"It was a big surprise to me how big the subprime market had gotten by 2005," the former Federal Reserve chairman told the AP. "I was told very little of the problems were under Fed supervision. But still, if we had seen something big, we would have made a big fuss about it. But we didn't. We were wrong. Could we have caught it? I don't know."

Thinking about the lessons of history, Greenspan told the AP that he found "Coolidge," Amity Shlaes's biography of the 30th president, "fascinating because so little is known about him."

Asked by the AP if he admired Calvin Coolidge, Greenspan said, "Yes. I always have. He had his problems. It is a very interesting period of American history which I don't fully understand."

You can read the entire AP interview with Greenspan here.