Greenspan continues fighting inflation to the bitter end

Alan Greenspan spent his last day as Federal Reserve chairman doing what he set out to do when he took the job 18-and-a-half years ago, fighting inflation. The Fed increased rates again at the end of January and left open the possibility of another increase next month in a smooth handoff of the Fed policy baton from Greenspan to Ben Bernanke. The quarter-percentage point increase lifted the Fed's target for the overnight lending rate to 4.5%. That's very close to most officials' estimate of the so-called neutral level - the rate at which monetary policy is neither stimulating nor restra...