any favors. They were bailing themselves out. But that deal went through. It closed and life went on. In fact, after that, the Fed cut interest rates twice. The stock market rallied late 1998, 1999. That was the dot-com boom, if you will call it. There was no economic recession. And that was right after a Greenspan had had to walk back as a rational, exuberant, exuberant comment. Well, he made that in 1996, and then by 1998 it was kind of like, well, whatever, and it's going to do what it's going to do. That is an interesting sidelight, by the way, to meet you, because it has to do with the Fed's reaction function to bubbles. That was actually the origin of the Fed saying, we're not in the business of popping bubbles. We're in the business of cleaning up after the bubbles pop. And Greenspan did that in 2000. The dot-com bubble did pop in 2000. The NASDAQ fell 80%. And other markets fell by comparable amounts, not quite 80%. But then Greenspan cut interest rates in the early 2000s, kept (15/98)
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