House prices in the US are likely to fall significantly from their present levels, Alan Greenspan has told the Financial Times, admitting for the first time that there was a bubble in the US housing market.

格林斯潘称，房价的跌幅将“超出多数人的预期”。他的自传将于今日出版。

In an interview ahead of the release today of his memoirs¹, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve said the decline in house prices “is going to be larger than most people expect”.

但格林斯潘表示，他的继任者们必须格外小心，降息幅度不要过大，因为目前“通胀抬头”的风险要比他在任时更大。美联储官员明日将开会决定利率。

But Mr Greenspan said that his successors at the Fed – who meet tomorrow to set interest rates – would have to be careful not to ease rates too aggressively, because the risk of an “inflationary resurgence” was greater now than when he was Fed chief.

格林斯潘称，他预计美国房价从峰值水平到最低水平“至少会出现较大个位数”的跌幅，并补充称，如果跌幅“达到两位数”，他不会感到惊讶。

Mr Greenspan said he would expect “as a minimum, large single-digit” percentage declines in US house prices from peak to trough and added that he would not be surprised if the fall was “in double digits”.

格林斯潘表示，从全国水平看，房价可能已经较峰值水平下跌了2％至3％左右。

Mr Greenspan said house prices were probably already down about 2-3 per cent from their peak on a national level.

但他警告称，很难预测最终跌幅会有多大。

However, he cautioned that it was very difficult to predict how large the ultimate decline would be.

在担任美联储主席期间，格林斯潘曾谈到住宅市场的“浮沫”（froth），但从未表示住宅市场整体存在泡沫。他的继任者本?伯南克(Ben Bernanke)也避免使用“泡沫”这个词。

As Fed chairman, Mr Greenspan had talked about “froth” in the housing sector², but never said there was a bubble in the market as a whole. His successor Ben Bernanke has also avoided the word “bubble”.

然而，格林斯潘日前在接受英国《金融时报》采访时表示，浮沫“是泡沫的委婉说法”。他表示，他仍然认为浮沫（由小泡沫堆积而成）是更好的表述，因为美国各地住宅市场上的房价涨幅各不相同。但他表示：“这些浮沫聚集在一起，就会形成一个总体的泡沫。”

However, Mr Greenspan told the FT that froth “was a euphemism³ for a bubble”. He said he still thought froth – a collection of bubbles – was a better description, because of the variation in house price appreciation⁴ in different local housing markets. But he said “all the froth bubbles add up to an aggregate⁵ bubble”.

这位美联储前主席称，当前的金融市场动荡是“一件早晚要发生的事”。

The former chairman said the current turmoil⁶ in financial markets was ”an accident waiting to happen”.

他表示，此前风险价格降到了不可持续的低位，对于能够提供比美国国债更高收益率的资产支持证券，投资者就好像吸了“可卡因”一样上瘾。

He said the price of risk had fallen to unsustainably low levels beforehand, with investors⁷ addicted⁸ to asset-backed securities that offered some additional yield over Treasury⁹ bonds as if they were ”cocaine”.