Paul Volcker, the towering former Federal Reserve Chairman who tamed US inflation in the 1980s and, decades later, inspired tough Wall Street reforms in the wake of the global financial crisis, died on Monday at the age of 92, according to the New York Times , which quoted his daughter.
Volcker, who media reports said had been suffering from prostate cancer, was the first to bring celebrity status to the job of US central banker, serving as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. As with the man who succeeded him, Alan Greenspan, Volcker could soothe or excite financial markets with just a vague murmur. In 2018, he published a memoir, Keeping at It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government , and expressed concern about the direction of the US federal government and the loss of respect for it.
In 2009, Volcker began serving as a key financial adviser to US President Barack Obama and faced a maelstrom of financial turmoil, government bailouts and fallout from the deepest recession since the 1930s Great Depression.
In working to help the U.S. economy recover from the 2008 crisis, he proposed what became known as the Volcker rule that restricted banks from making high-risk investments with depositors' cash.
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