GREENSPAN MORE UP THAN DOWN

That Alan Greenspan. No more talk of irrational exuberance from him, even when the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 11,000. This time he’s talking about tight labor markets.

His speech at a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago sent the Dow down 100 points until traders screwed their courage to the sticking-place and realized the Fed chairman wasn’t going to raise interest rates right now. Maybe they even noted that the interest-rate Cerberuses of the Bank of England and the European Central Bank had just met and didn’t feel the need to slow inflation, either.

They might have observed that Mr. Greenspan was verbally jumping up and down and turning cartwheels about the happy state of the world’s economy. Well, what passes as cartwheels for him, at least.

He actually admitted there are “tentative signs” of improvement in the world’s economy: Europe’s woes are temporary, Latin America has “dodged the bullet” and East Asia, although shaky, is on its feet and punching back.

Still, being the kind of guy he is, Mr. Greenspan warned that the U.S. trade imbalance is unsustainable and made mention, ahem, of the “spectacular rise in equity prices that to many has reached well beyond the justifiable.”

His explanation of why things are so good: computers and the Internet, which he credited with boosting productivity by 3% last year. And you thought it was because people were working 12-hour (a 33% increase) days.

Netless profit

One of those who believes the rise in stock prices might be unjustifiable is the nabob of Nebraska, Warren Buffett, who also is well-known for being leery of the Internet in general.

The bardic billionaire of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. told the company’s annual meeting that when looking to buy a company, especially retailers, “in some cases the Internet is such a threat we wouldn’t want to get into it.”

Omaha’s answer to Bill Gates for years has said he won’t invest in computer outfits because he only puts his money in companies he understands. He does understand retail, though: Agents for Berkshire-owned Geico gave insurance quotes to any of the 14,000-odd stockholders who wanted them (New Jersey residents need not apply, since Geico pulled out of the highly regulated state) as they munched on candy and ice cream sold by Buffett-owned businesses.

You needn’t feel left out if you weren’t there. A virtual trip to www.berkshirehathaway.com/orderfrm.html will bring right to your laptop a photo of the divine Warren, in white golf shirt and cap, surrounded by local beauties modeling the rest of his line (it also comes in red), a T-shirt and a sweatshirt. All bear the company logo of a hand squeezing a fistful of dollars.

“Currency not included,” the order form notes.

.commania continues

One outfit that does believe in the ‘net is barnesandnoble.com Inc. Seven weeks ago, the jointly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble Inc. and Germany’s Bertelsmann AG said in a filing that by selling 25 million shares it hopes to raise $200 million. Now the online book retailer has upped the ante to $300 million.

The stock is expected to sell for $11 to $13 a pop and proceeds will go, as if you didn’t know, to pay for anticipated operating losses. And for all you admirers of PricewaterhouseCoopers-style names, barnesandnoble.com Inc. will become a holding company for the operating company, to be called barnesandnoble.com LLP. The world’s hyphen factories must be working overtime. They sure are at, uh, InvestmentNews.

About those ads…

Still hitchhiking along the information superhighway, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt asked Congress for $11 million to fight online crooks.

He said he intends to double the cyberforce of web-surfing fraud ferrets to 125 (there’s half a lawyer lurking somewhere) and he urged online brokerages to “talk in realistic terms” with investors.

“Some online firms’ advertisements,” he said, “more closely resemble commercials for the lottery than anything else.”