In the nearly two years after the “irrational exuberance” speech, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates only once, and, in fact, cut rates several times in response to the various mid-nineties “crises” few now remember, like the so-called Asian Flu of July 1997.20 So, from late 1996 until late 1998—just the time when the dot-com bubble was inflating—the Fed was, to borrow from Wall Street lingo, extremely “accommodating” to the stock market.
