Discussions about the end of business cycles or new panics being impossible go back to the 1870s and again in the 1920s and 1960s. Not much is new. Even forgetting justice and equity, such gaps and preoccupations have been leading indicators of former great bubbles and their bursting. The Fed chairman and Treasury secretary are thought to be too smart, too well equipped with preventatives, for anything to go wrong. This is also an old song.
Success having been declared, no discussion is necessary.
But consider another precedent. In 1980, Fed Chairman Paul A. Volcker, new to his job, raised interest rates to tame inflation and then backed off when the economy started to slide into what could have been a serious election-year recession. Greenspan may also have stopped too soon out of deference to an imminent election and stock-market averages. Even globalization is intertwined with the fate of the new economy. The Fed, Bush and Gore are all pleased.