Alan Greenspan Debt Quotations

The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.

The very nature of finance is that it cannot be profitable unless it is significantly leveraged... and as long as there is debt, there can be failure and contagion.

helped to lower risk premiums on debt and have contributed importantly to the favorable investment environment.

Large deficits will result in rising interest rates and an ever-growing ratio of debt service to GDP (gross domestic product),

Any onset of increased investor caution elevates risk premiums and, as a consequence, lowers asset values and promotes the liquidation of the debt that supported higher asset prices, ... This is the reason that history has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.

As I have said previously to this committee, because of the nature of the type of acceleration in productivity and dynamic change that is occurring in the American economy, my first priority would be to allow as much of the surplus to flow through into a reduction in debt to the public,