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...Greenspan that gets blamed if those six tightenings ending last spring put the boom into convulsions, but the Fed chairman figures that a slowdown would be much easier to bear - and modulate - than, say, stagflation, and that he can always slash short-term rates in January and beyond if things look dire...
...Fed chief has said he does not target stock prices. But he has also said stock prices have a lot to do with inflation, which he targets daily. Justin Martin, author of Greenspan: The Man Behind Money (Perseus; 284 pages; $28), neatly points out that this is "a rather too fine distinction." But he spends even less time than Woodward probing the matter and then mysteriously concludes that such a strategy wouldn't work anyway. Millions of people have come to believe that Greenspan purposely moves stock prices. They're wrong, according to both authors. Yet we get no proof...
...Maestro, an often tedious recounting of every Fed adjustment in short-term interest rates since 1987, we come to appreciate how brilliantly Greenspan manages the Federal Open Market Committee--the body that regularly meets and votes to set interest rates. We also get a revealing taste of the heavy politics involved and how Greenspan quietly and effectively shuffles through the most powerful ranks in Washington. Woodward, assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, makes a case for Greenspan's almost single-handedly engineering the prosperous 1990s. And his assertion that Greenspan sometimes literally gets a pain in the stomach...
...inhale, and that as a child he was terrified of the movie Frankenstein. We also get plenty of quotable Greenspan-speak: "I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant," the Fed chief once told Congress. Where Martin lets us down is in detailing recent events that mark Greenspan's tenure at the Fed and have turned him into a cult figure...
BONDS ARE BOOMING With the market limping badly and the economy stagnating, inflation-indexed Treasury bonds are gaining some momentum. The bonds, first offered last year, are increasing in yield, as expected easing of the Fed's interest rates has bolstered demand in recent weeks. Certainly, inflation is no big deal and no big scare, but it's still there. With these indexed bonds, the Treasury adjusts the principal annually in accordance with annual cost of living increases, so interest payments, like Social Security checks, provide a current-value source of steady income. It's a no-lose deal, which...