See Alan Run

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He can try. The Fed is widely expected to cut rates again at the November meeting, again on December 22, and quite possibly several more times in the new year. If a recession does hit, Greenspan's quick action has already given the financial-services sector some hope; bank and brokerage stocks soared some 10 percent on Thursday after the twin rate cuts were announced. That euphoria will probably prove fleeting, says Kadlec. "The financial services industry is so overbuilt, so overextended from the boom years, that there's bound to be a pullback."

Greenspan has waded into a morass of overexposure that only the banks themselves can fully gauge; if the Fed chairman sees something horrifying on the event horizon, he's not giving up the gritty details. Most market watchers trust Greenspan's near-spotless record, even if they don't know what, precisely, he sees. "Eventually he's going to be wrong, but it's too early to tell right now if this is it," says Kadlec. "I think he's acted in time."

And what about derivatives? The instruments have made a lot of people a lot of money, and Greenspan himself credits derivatives in part for the current economic boom. So will money managers break it off with the wild woman that has now brought them so much pain? No way, says Kadlec. "You never end the love affair with derivatives. Once you go down that road, you never go back," he says. "You just keep looking for new ones." See you next time, Alan.