ALLAN GREENSPAN AND THE BIG CHAIR

*(Humorist’s note: I wrote this column several years ago, when Allan Greenspan still sat at the helm of the Federal Reserve. As his latest book: “The Age Of Turbulence,” hits the bookshelves, I thought it fitting to revisit his stewardship.)*

When I was very young, every Sunday afternoon I’d sit in Grampa’s dreaded “Big Chair.” The BC was an enormous, squat, plush, dark, raised paisley easy chair with rising, rolling arms too steep even for a five-year-old boy’s climbing prowess, and a sagging, springy seat that could, with one false move, swallow a fidgety post-toddler in the cushion-crack in one gulp.

When my grandfather sat in it, it looked like a slumping Lincoln Memorial. When I was placed in it, it felt like a Fantasia electric chair.

I received my first lessons in Economics therein, when Grampa checked and balanced me firmly in the BC’s center, stepped back and said: “Now, I’ll give you a quarter if you can sit still for five minutes.” Oh, the horror.

Keep in mind; this was when a quarter bought two fistfuls of candy, with enough left over for a pocketful of Pixie Sticks. Yes, it was my first and lasting lesson in how money is the root canal of all evil.

This brings us to Allen Greenspan, and best explains why today, try as I might to sit still long enough, I don’t have a clue about what he’s trying to say, except that whenever he says it, he makes money lenders and borrowers sweat bullets.

Whenever the Federal Reserve emperor goes on parade, an avenue of onlooking analysts attempt to out-extemporize each other describing his new duds, and I feel like the child on the sidelines watching the naked royalty roll by.

Please, no letters from well-intentioned parsimonians who might attempt to clarify what I am about to muddy-up. I do appreciate the thought, but I really don’t want to de-mystify the wild restraint set upon me long ago by the saving Zen of the Big Chair.

My apologies, Mr. Greenspan, but when you show off your new invisible magic cloak by telling me that my tax dollars are being subjected to “significantly volatile utilizations,” and are “flattening, not shrinking,” I just can’t get past the sight of you passing by in the buff.

When you sashay down the economic news parade route sporting a “collapsing financial asset bubble,” I say, get some clothes on. It’s cold out here.

I’m a country boy squirming again in the big chair, and where I live (and, I suspect where most of my readers either do or wish they did) a significantly volatile utilization occurs when Ace, the pet parakeet, gets out of the cage and flies into the toaster oven.

I can appreciate the distinction of a flattening but not shrinking commodity if you’re talking about the last time I attempted to concoct a surprise banana nut bread, but if you’re talking moolah, you’ve got to slip into something more comfortable, if not visible.

As for a collapsing financial asset bubble, (in these White Mountains, anyway) that happens when the dog takes his job description far too seriously and literally, and chews a hole in the kids’ pup tent.

I’ll tell you why we travel in different metaphors, why I can’t sit still long enough to collect your twenty-five cents, and why I’ll never pursue a lot of money I don’t have, or be pursued by a lot of money I do. Right now, here’s what’s happening to currency in the world. I’m retrieving this verbiage verbatim from an assortment of the day’s business/financial pages.

On this date, the dollar:

Immersed itself in risk aversions. Produced jitters in trading stimulations. It plunged, dropped, surged, nose-dived and fell sharply. It rose, dipped, recovered and exerted downward pressure. It knocked the wind out of Japanese exporters. It was volatile, nervous and kept its head. It edged up, held its shine and fell foul.

Yessir, today’s buck stopped short, swung wildly, quieted down, posted gains, took comfort and fell back to earth.

The global greenback, in just one business day: dragged, endured, gained, suspended and spooked the Dutch market. It rallied, weakened, faded, fizzled, yielded and zigzagged before it finally boosted the bears and bled the bulls.

Lastly, and my personal favorite, I knew if I looked at enough of these paper-chasing bulletins, I’d find the word I was looking for.

Today in the world of huckster and hustle, the almighty buck was: “fidgety.”

I’ll bet you two bits, that’s almost more than a sitting boy can stand.

Copyright 2007