On the day Al Gore swore in Hillary Clinton as a senator and George W. met with business leaders to discuss his tax-cut proposals, we were reminded who actually is in charge.

Hint: None of the above.

In one dramatic stroke, Alan (the Man) Greenspan put down his cigar long enough to breathe some life into the bull, which has been so listless that Merrill Lynch executives were threatening to renegotiate its contract.

Nasdaq, you may have noticed, had become Nosdiv. Consumer confidence had been plummeting, and not just among people who bought tires from Firestone.

W. had even invoked the possibility of recession. It wouldn't be long before someone used the "malaise" word.

Although the stock market and economy aren't necessarily the same, it's easy to get confused, particularly if you're looking at your 401(k) statement. My friend, who plays the market like it's a floating craps game, put it this way: "This was nice, but what's Greenspan going to do tomorrow? Baby needs new shoes."

For a brief time, we might have forgotten who runs things. There was the excitement of the election and the post-election election and then the Supreme Court election — no exit polling required — to distract us.

And then there was the naming of the Cabinet, which seemed limited to those who worked in the Ford administration or attended the University of Denver. (Were you as surprised as I was about Gale Norton? I'd have been less surprised by either of the Ed Nortons. Or Ken Nortons. And how was it that Ben Nighthorse Campbell became the only ethnically-enhanced Republican not in the Bush cabinet?)

If you hadn't noticed that the Nasdaq was down more than half its value since March, you might have been shocked to see the story on Colorado businessmen and their big market losses, in one case $5 billion in a year. OK, they were just paper losses. But how many paper losses before you're on a corner of Speer holding up a cardboard sign promising you "will lay off employees for catered food"?

Just when panic was about to set in, the Man spoke. OK, he mumbled. It's what the Man does.

As soon as he mumbled, joy broke out on the Street. Think Pamplona, if everyone running there had briefcases. Greenspan chopped a half point off interest rates and said there could be more where that came from.

This was the same Greenspan who once worried about the "irrational exuberance" of investors. That was years ago, before the stock market became the national pastime and anyone with the Idiot's Guide to Investing could hit a home run.

It was just one year ago that Time's Man of the Year was the head of Amazon.com. Now, when there's no more dot-com exuberance, you can buy Amazon stock cheaper than you can purchase an on-line copy of Maestro. That's the new book by Bob Woodward, who has written about all the important people of our time — Nixon, Casey, Belushi.

The maestro is, of course, Greenspan. Anyone can be president — I'm passing on the obvious joke — but only Greenspan gets to be maestro. He had to do something to keep the title. A recession, I believe, wouldn't help.

Nitpickers may note that, under Greenspan's guidance, wages have not grown at the rate of the economy while the divide between rich and poor grows ever wider. I think we've learned something, though, in the past decade. It's hard to hear the nitpickers when you're on the line with your broker.

Mike Littwin's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Call him at (303) 892-5428 or e-mail him at littwinm@rockymountainnews.com