Why would someone think I was getting uppity? I don’t know, because often people think that when you correct them or someone they support. Because if someone were really a fan of Greenspan they would likely hit me with “he was the chairman of the Fed, he’s got PhD.’s and experience out the wazoo, what do you have”, which is pretty much why I said that I have data to back it up.

Thinking about it though, he was probably referring to how values in the negative realm are subjectively weighted more heavily than values in the positive realm. Tversky and Kahnemann did work in this area that shows that as you approach zero changes in objective value (say, a $1 change) vary subjectively based on distance from zero (or any anchor point really). So that a change from $1 to $2 dollars is subjectively weighted more than a change from $9 to $10. This tends to make people risk averse as you approach zero.

But again, there are other conditions that affect this. Tversky Kahnemann’s later work makes this clear (re: The Asian Disease Problem).

He also said repeatedly in an interview with Terry Gross that he was in no way responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crisis, which I would say is wrong.