In less than two months his 18-year office will end. Before Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve System chairman, leaves office at the end of January, he has given advice and warning regarding America’s economy.

• The Good and Bad of a Global Economy

Over the past 18 years, Greenspan has earned the admiration of U.S. citizens for keeping inflation under control. Yet he admits that he has had some help. The low inflation rate in the United States has largely been at cost to millions of workers in China, India and Eastern Europe.

The global economy has eased the inflation battle because the new global workers increase competition. However, many of the jobs that used to be in America are being done overseas.

“U.S. manufacturing jobs have withered over the past five years and many of those jobs are never coming back,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, a private consulting firm.

Greenspan believes an educated workforce with skills for the future’s high-tech jobs will solve unemployment problems.

• The Budget Deficit

The budget deficit works like this. If a business makes $90,000 this year on a $100,000 bank loan, it will report a $10,000 loss. But if the bank tells the business it only has to make a $100 monthly payment on the loan, it could easily pay the debt. Government has a large debt, but the payments are relatively easy to make.

When Bill Clinton entered office, government created a surplus by raising taxes and limiting government spending. The last budget surplus was Clinton’s last year in 2001. George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cut was followed by several economic setbacks—Sept. 11, the war in Iraq, and the hurricane trio. Since then, the budget has shown red ink, culminating in this year’s $319 billion shortage.

Alan Greenspan acknowledged that rebuilding after the three hurricanes will make it hard to improve this year’s balance sheet. In the long run, retiring baby boomers will strain the resources.

“Unless the situation is reversed, at some point, these budget trends will cause serious economic disruptions,” he said.

According to Harvard’s Institute of Politics, 42 percent of students feel the economy is “the most important or second most important [voting] issue.”