28 AUGUST 1999, Page 27

It's Superalan

ALAN Greenspan has dropped the other shoe and, in the room below, the markets can relax. They have been waiting restlessly for him to raise dollar interest rates for the second time in eight weeks, and now he has, so maybe that's it for a bit, and let's hope so. On Wall Street, this hope has sufficed to take share prices (at least as measured by the Dow Jones index) into new high ground. What Superalan has in fact done is to reverse two of the three quick cuts he made a year ago, when he was credited with sav- ing the world. There are times when I won- der what effect all this unthinking adulation has on him. It is all right, I suppose, so long as he does not inhale, but I am sure that it cannot be healthy for his worshippers.