Greenspan's last day

The longest-serving Federal Reserve Board chairman in history marks his last day on the job today - and it's not expected to be uneventful. Alan Greenspan, the Fed boss for nearly 20 years under four presidents, is expected to preside over one more quarter-of-a-point, short-term interest rate hike, bringing it to 4.5 percent.

Investors hope that, with the economy showing signs of cooling off, it will be the last such hike for many months to come. Overall, though, investors are not particularly worried about interest rates or inflation, which demonstrates what a remarkably good job Greenspan has done. There's a whole generation of Americans who have grown into adulthood without experiencing the pain of soaring double-digit interest rates and inflation.

There was a time when the thought of Greenspan leaving his Fed post would have sent the equity markets into an economy-crashing tailspin, so give the Bush administration and Greenspan himself credit for making a seamless transition to the new Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke.

With all those years as Fed chief, Greenspan perfected the art of Fedspeak - uttering a lot of words that seem extremely insightful but actually say nothing. Hopefully, Bernanke has also learned Fedspeak - a necessary language because the equity markets have an exaggerated sensitivity to anything the Fed chairman says that might seem significant.

After nearly two decades of Fedspeak, Greenspan probably has a lot to say in plain English that he'd like to get off his chest. If so, we just hope the markets remember he's not really the Fed chairman anymore.

Give the man a break. He's earned it.