These are two smart people. Faber advised clients to get out of stocks before the 1987 crash. In the 2000s, he predicted the rise in oil, gold and commodities in general, and the boom in China. He also predicted the decline in the US dollar since 2002 and also the shorter term dramatic rebound in 2008. He can be wrong (or maybe early) as in his call for a US recession in 2013, but he is right way more than he is wrong.
As for Greenspan, his era at the Fed is thought of as what the Fed was supposed to be, a modulator of cycles and protector of savings. There were nothing but mild recessions for those 18 years. One overall measure of his success is to simply consider the price of gold in 1987 at his start at the Fed and in 2005 at its end – both right at $400 an ounce. One of his famous quotes is,
“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.”
There was no big “gold standard” debate back then simply because Greenspan had us on a de-facto gold standard anyway...
- Source, Forbes
