mr. greenspan: no, but it sure enough embarrassed me. i very much appreciated that. >> [laughter] mr. greenspan: i got past the embarrassment very easily. fareed: paul volcker, you had a slightly different situation. you were hung in effigy when you raised interest rates, because people thought that you had single-handedly plunged the american economy into a recession. how difficult was it to deal with that? >> i thought they were cheering me. >> you thought they were cheering you? mr. volcker: to answer your basic question, you have a board, you have a public, you have reserve bank presidents. you can't quite do exactly what you want without a lot of people being encouraged to agree with you, and someone sometimes disagreed, so it's not quite so absolute as you suggest. but, look, i always get asked this question about the farmers circling the federal reserve and so forth. we would not have survived without public support. people thought there was a big problem, and they didn't know all the answers, but people were unhappy with malaise. the inflation rate going up a couple percent eve

mr. greenspan: no, but it sure enough embarrassed me. i very much appreciated that. [laughter] mr. eenspan: i got past the embarrassment very easily. fareed: paul volcker, you had a slightly different situation. you were hung in effigy when you raised interest rates, because people thought that you had single-handedly plunged the american economy into a recession. how difficult was it to deal with that? mr. volcker: i thought they were cheering me. fareed: you thought they were cheering you? mr. volcker: look, to answer your basic question, what is it like to be chairman with all of this authority -- you have a board, you have a public, you have reserve bank presidents. you can't quite do exactly what you want without a lot of people being encouraged to agree with you, and some of them sometimes disagreed, so it's not quite so absolute as you suggest. but, look, i always get asked this question about the farmers circling the federal reserve and so forth. we wouldn't have survived without a lot of public support. people thought there was a big problem, and they didn't know all the an

greenspan has mr. been reading far too much european press. joining me to discuss the fed is ramin nakisa. -- of wisdom and some fairly interesting messages. saying fiscal policy needs to step in. he went on to talk about the global nature of risk. the fed, they noted that 20 times. when you hear that kind of concern, the fed is very much more a global fed than it was under volcker. paul volcker raised rates and thwarted inflation. greenspan butchered bond markets twice by raising rates in 1994. and look at this, the lockstep is that he made in the early 2000's. treasuries have been demolished in terms of yield. saying toat overall you? ramin: i think what is key is where we are headed. what is the ultimate level of the fed funds rate going to be? that depends on the level of growth, which has been coming down steadily over the past 30, 40 years. what we expecting is that the terminal rate is going to be 2.9%. on your chart, that is a lot lower than in the past. manus: i'm going to all this up as well. that is what markets are really getting t

mr. greenspan, who said they did not see a risk of recession on the horizon. well, yellen also played down risked to the u.s. economy and explained just why she thinks inflation is below target. >> we think it's partly transitory, influences namely declining oil prices and the strong dollar, that are responsible for pulling inflation below the 2% level we think is most desirable. i think we're making progress there as well, and this is an economy on a solid course, not a bubble economy. >> now, the four fed chairs, they also discussed how to unwind the central bank's swollen balance sheet. ben bernanke said he expected it would naturally shrink over time. >> the fed will stop reinvesting securities as they mature, simply step back, and over a period of a number of years, it will just go down. in the end, all we have to show for it is the fact that over the last five years from those securities, besides the first quarter that they helped our economy recover, the fed has sent profits to the treasury of half a trillion dollars in profit, which has reduced the bur

greenspan had. is that a power that, for some people, is just too much? mr. bernanke made a point of saying, you know, we work together on this. we have to speak with our colleagues. we try to arrive at a consensus. there are of course dissenters, but they tried to arrive at a consensus -- they try to arrive at a consensus. is that what members of congress have been talking about? do they believe the federal reserve and, particularly, the chair of the rozier has too much -- the federal reserve has too much unchecked power? with: bernanke did say great power goes great responsibility. just thinking back what he did with the crisis, he was sleeping overnight in his office and stuff. it was interesting that both bernanke and yelling are more consensus -- yellen are more consensus-oriented. greenspan, perhaps he did not always consult the members as much as they should. the bernanke and yellen, lead up to the fomc meetings, they work the phones and get all the views of all the members. rupkey, always good to see you. thanks so much. and matt osler -- boesler, joi