Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- For someone who made headlines with his every utterance -- even if no one could agree on what he had said -- Alan Greenspan offers few newsmaking moments in his eagerly awaited memoir, ``The Age of Turbulence,'' published today with great ballyhoo.

Sure, his criticisms of the Bush administration (for its ``out-of-control spending''), Republicans in Congress (they ``lost their way,'' ``swapped principle for power'' and ``ended up with neither'') and the Iraq War (``largely about oil'') provided weekend fodder for the media. But that's no different from the way senators and representatives used Greenspan's views on various fiscal initiatives -- deficit reduction, good; regulation, bad; tax cuts, good or bad, depending -- for their own political purposes during his 18 years as Federal Reserve chairman.

The more newsworthy part of Greenspan's memoir is his outlook for the U.S. economy in the year 2030, presented in the final chapter. Among his Delphic predictions are a slowdown in innovation; an average growth rate of less than 2.5 percent, compared with 3.1 percent over the last quarter-century; a weakening of globalization's disinflationary forces; and an inflation rate of 4.5 percent -- unless the Fed takes draconian measures, jacking up interest rates into the ``double-digit range,'' to prevent it.

``Sometime before 2030 the world is likely to be trading 10-year U.S. treasuries at a rate of at least 8 percent,'' Greenspan says.

`Measured' Approach

While Greenspan calls his book a detective story, there isn't much in the way of suspense. That's odd, given that his tenure as Fed chairman from 1987 to 2006 coincided with Black Monday (Oct. 19, 1987), when the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 508 points, or 22.6 percent of its value; the collapse of the savings-and-loan industry; a credit crunch; the Mexican peso crisis; the near-collapse of Long-Term Capital Management; the Asian financial crisis; Russia's default; and two asset bubbles (one in technology and Internet stocks in the late 1990s, the other in residential real estate more recently) and their aftermath.

How did it feel to be calling the shots, with the global financial system awaiting his every decision on interest rates? Was it scary? Does he regret anything?

Greenspan's words are as measured as they were in his communications as Fed chairman. Now as then, they seem designed to create an effect rather than to unveil the wizard behind the curtain.

Presidential Adviser

Unlike his speeches and testimonies, with their convoluted syntax, the book is an easy, breezy read, dividing neatly into two parts. The first half is a memoir, starting with Greenspan's humble beginnings in New York City's Washington Heights neighborhood as an only child of divorced parents and an avid student of math, music and baseball.

He attended the Juilliard School, played saxophone with the Henry Jerome orchestra, studied economics and set up a forecasting firm with his partner. He married, divorced and dated Barbara Walters before marrying NBC's Andrea Mitchell. ``I'm not threatened by a powerful woman,'' he says.

His thinking was influenced by his Columbia University professor Arthur Burns (who went on to become Fed chairman after a distinguished career as a business-cycle economist) and libertarian novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand.

He advised six presidents (Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were the smartest, he says) and had a ``terrible relationship'' with only one (George H.W. Bush, who blamed Greenspan's management of the economy for his loss to Clinton in 1992). He ``would have loved a chance to serve as Treasury secretary,'' an opportunity that vanished when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976. (Greenspan was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Ford.)

His up-close-and-personal observations about the rich and the powerful are interesting, but they don't tell us what makes this man tick.

Je Ne Regrette Rien?

The second part of the book finds Greenspan opining on the merits of capitalism; what conditions foster economic prosperity (property rights is No. 1); globalization; economic populism in Latin America; China; Russia; energy and income inequality (education is the solution, he writes, not government-mandated wages). He is intelligent, articulate and convincing -- as long as the subject isn't himself.

Greenspan, who reportedly received an advance of more than $8 million for this memoir, seems eager to stave off criticism for keeping short-term rates too low for too long in 2003 and 2004, stoking a housing bubble in the process. He was aware of reduced credit standards on subprime mortgage loans, he says, ``but I believed then, as now, that the benefits of broadened home ownership are worth the risk.''

That view is being challenged as the housing bubble deflates, delinquencies and foreclosures rise and financial losses mount. The reader is left wondering if a more introspective Greenspan, and one less interested in shaping his legacy, wouldn't have found a regret or two along the way.

``The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World'' is published by Penguin Press (531 pages, $35).

(Caroline Baum, author of ``Just What I Said,'' is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. To comment on this column, click {LETT <GO>} and write a letter to the editor.)

Last Updated: September 17, 2007 00:04 EDT