GovernmentExecutive.com

It's that time of year, when Washington's movers and shakers leave the capital to offer up words of wisdom to graduates of the nation's finest institutions of higher learning. Generally they just serve up platitudes about how bright the future is, the importance of following one's dreams, etc. But sometimes they just can't leave the world of policy behind even for a few minutes. For example, on Sunday at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, commencement speaker Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, gave a mini-seminar on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Even Greenspan's homilies were expressed in terms only an economist could love. Honesty is the best policy, he said, because, well, it makes the economy run better: "In virtually all our transactions, whether with customers or with colleagues, with friends or with strangers, we rely on the word of those with whom we do business," he said. "If we could not do so, goods and services could not be exchanged efficiently."