If Alan Greenspan aspired to be the Grinch who stole Wall Street's Christmas, he spoke up too late. The Federal Reserve Board chairman's warning of "irrational exuberance" in stock prices braked the market for just two days before investors stepped on the accelerator again, sending the Dow Jones industrial average into uncharted territory. So brokerage and investment-banking firms and their employees are whooping it up with perfectly rational exuberance: they are closing the books on their most profitable year ever. Year-end bonuses will surpass even those of the best years of the junk-bond infused, too-much-is-never-enough 1980s. "It's obscene," admits a bond...
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