Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman and economic 'Maestro,' spoke this morning at a packed Radio City Music Hall. In a very Wall-Streety charcoal grey suit and red tie, the man who presided over two decades of nearly uninterrupted growth in the U.S. seemed relaxed and happy -- there to bask in his glory, not raise the alarm.

That doesn't mean he had all good news to tell to the 5,000 attendees of the World Business Forum. Greenspan had a few basic concerns (which will be familiar to those who have heard his latest thoughts as he makes the media rounds to promote his memoir, "The Age of Turbulence"):

* The housing market is going to continue to decline. It's simple really -- there is a lot of unsold inventory of newly constructed homes still coming on the market. Builders will cut prices to sell and that will drive down the broader real estate market. How significant will the declines be? He wasn't sure.

* The odds of a recession are between 30% and 50% (or 42.35%, Greenspan said as a joke). In March he thought the odds were only 30%, but following the crisis in the credit markets, he now thinks it could be as high as 50%. The deciding factor will be how the stock market holds up. Since it is recently hitting new highs even as economic growth slows, things are looking pretty good.

Move over, Harry. Make way for Alan.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has a new best-seller perched at the top of the book list. And it has nothing to do with magic. Or wait, maybe it does.

Although only on sale since Monday, the former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan's personal memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, has sat at the top of the best seller list at the world's largest online bookseller. This suggests that quite a few folks are looking for answers from the often much-admired former fed chief.

And an explanation, perhaps, for all the dark alchemy currently churning the markets.

With yesterday's larger-than-expected rate cut, what is going on in the minds of bankers, corporate spenders and avid citizen economists? Everyone, even, apparently, the man on the street, wants to read -- in easy translation -- what Greenspan really thought during his generation-long tenure at the Fed. Indeed, even the book's ominous title hints that things may never be the same again.

It's ironic that the memoirs of a man who is notorious for being oblique is now a best-seller.

Over the weekend, we had a wide range of "Money Face-Off's" here on Bloggingstocks, and I brought you the face-off between Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. In discussing Greenspan, I noted that one of the main ways a Fed Chief can stay in power for as long as he did was to keep his Presidents happy. Now that Greenspan is no longer under the thumb of President Bush, he obviously feels no such responsibility, and that is made evident in the harsh comments he has on the current President in his book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," due to be released today.

Even though the book was not scheduled to come out until today, the Associated Press got its hands on a copy over the weekend and quickly pointed out that the former Fed Chief has some pretty nasty things to say about our current President, as well as on the future of the economy in his much anticipated memoirs.

In his book, Greenspan said that the greatest frustration he had with President Bush was his consistent unwillingness to veto "out-of-control spending." Let's remember that Greenspan is a well-known Republican, so watching an administration ignore party doctrine and move away from small government principals has to hurt a bit, especially when that government is being led by another member of the Republican party.

Alan Greenspan's $8 million (his advance) book, The Age of Turbulence, is taking center stage. I found four interesting observations:

• Assessing Presidents. Having served under five Presidents, Greenspan's observations intrigued me. He liked Clinton the best -- citing his hunger for data and his commitment to long-term economic growth. He seemed to admire Reagan's special ability to come up with a pithy phrase to summarize his policy views. And he was disappointed with George W. Bush -- citing his willingness to sacrifice a balanced budget for increased odds at reelection.
• Shaping history's verdict on him. He tries to influence the historical record to escape responsibility for his role in many bad economic decisions. For example, he supported the $1.6 trillion worth of Bush tax cuts early in the current administration which contributed to this decade's budget deficits. But in the book, he tries to weasel out of that. And he acts in the book as though he was surprised that his decision to give away money -- setting the Fed Funds rate at 1% in mid-2003 and keeping it there for a year -- contributed to the housing bubble whose bursting is responsible for the current problems in the housing and credit markets.

Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chief who some hail as the greatest central banker of all time, tells 60 Minutes that he didn't realize the sloppy mortgage lending practices of recent years could hurt the larger economy until recently, according to the Washington Post today. The 60 Minutes interview with Greenspan is scheduled to run on Sunday evening at 7 (EDT).

Greenspan is back in the public eye as he promotes his new memoir, "Age of Turbulence," which is being released Monday. It's a delicious irony that the man who turned on the liquidity spigot in the first place would come out with a book so titled.

But apart from that chuckle, this revelation is unsettling. I'm not sure how arguably one of the most influential Fed
leaders in history could be so short-sighted about the long-term ramifications of his actions (specifically, lowering the interest rate to the lowest point in a generation). I'd like to think these guys are a lot smarter than the rest of us,
with access to the best financial brains available. How is it possible to not realize that unbridled lending will end in
tears?

Hasn't he ever heard the old tropes about paying the piper or the free lunch? Stay tuned for this and other explanations, coming soon to a bookstore near you.