His hands were tied. (The Week in Review).

Investment News, September, 2002 by Gabriel, Frederick P., Jr.

* Hey don't look at me, said Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan. With the New Economy stock bubble being blamed in part on greedy CEOs, conflicted analysts and unscrupulous accountants, Mr. Greenspan said Friday that there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. "The notion that a well-timed incremental tightening could have been calibrated to prevent the late 1990s bubble is almost surely an illusion," the chairman said in a kickoff speech at the Fed's annual economic conference in Kansas City, Mo.

Mr. Greenspan insisted that there is little a central bank can do to counter market psychology. This from the man whose every utterance moves the market.