JANUARY 25, 2002 — I’m confused.

On January 11, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan angled those economic-indicating eyebrows of his and intoned, "Signals about the current course of the economy have turned from unremittingly negative ... to a far more mixed set of signals." Oh boy! Break out the credit cards, kids — we’re going to Disney World!

But wait.

"I would emphasize," Greenspan went on to say, "that we continue to face significant risks." Among the "risks" Greenspan detailed that day were: anemic business profits and investment, wishy-washy consumer spending, mushrooming unemployment, and plummeting stock prices. Break out the flashlights, kids — we’re going to the bomb shelter!

Talk about a mixed set of signals. Come Thursday of this week — aware perhaps that he can send stock markets tumbling by so much as picking his teeth with his tongue — a decidedly more chirpy Chairman announced that Happy Days Are Here Again! Or Nearly Here. Sort of. Addressing the Senate Budget Committee, Greenspan said, "We are at this particular turning point, as best I can judge," adding, "There have been signs recently that some of the forces that have been restraining the economy over the past year are starting to diminish and that activity is beginning to firm." (Greenspan’s January 11 speech, aides went on to say, "could have been worded better.")

So what is it to be, Disney World or the bomb shelter?

Never mind that a year ago the Fed was predicting a whopping $300 billion budget surplus for the years 2002-2003. Never mind that the same years will likely see a $35 billion budget shortfall. Let’s even ignore the fact that Thursday’s Washington Post online gave us the headline AD SLUMP HURTS DOW JONES PROFITS. The truly scary thing is: on the very day that Greeney delivered his new-and-improved speech (Thursday, for those who aren’t keeping track), McDonald’s announced a fourth-quarter net-earnings slump of 40 percent. McDonalds! It’s fifth straight quarterly decline! If the hamburger leviathan is feeling the pinch, what hope for the Italian sausage guy at Downtown Crossing?

But wait.

Also on Thursday, Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee giant, announced that its first quarter net profits were up 40 percent. Oy. And while Kmart execs continued picking through the remainder bin of their once-mighty empire, Thursday’s papers gave us the bracing news that Wal-Mart is poised to become the world’s largest company, with 2001 revenues exceeding $220 billion, outpacing ExxonMobil’s paltry $212.9 billion.

As if all this weren’t confusing enough, Thursday also brought the news that pop prima donna Mariah Carey was about to be offered a $28 million contract buyout by the cash-strapped EMI corporation, whose executives blamed September 11 for the fact that the company lost $74.5 million in a six-month period last year. Fair enough. Times are hard, right? It makes sense that a country at war has little appetite for bubble-gum pop.

But wait.

While Carey’s CD sales suffered from the post–September 11 slump, by December 2001, sexy songstress Britney Spears’s third album, Britney, had smashed through Gold and Platinum status to reach the heady heights of quadruple-platinum sales. But why? There’s no solid evidence that Britney is any less annoying than Mariah — nor, for that matter, that Wal-Mart offers services that much better than Kmart's, nor that coffee is a hotter commodity in the US than hamburgers are.

The fact is, these are uncertain times, and at such times Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand tends to tremble a bit. Despite the sincerest efforts of the most accomplished economic pundit, there’s simply no telling what the nation’s consumers will do next. Consumers wield mighty power, but we are as capricious as toddlers, as temperamental as teenagers. We may spend our dollars here, or we may spend them there, or we may not spend them at all. Nyah.

Anyone in doubt of America’s unpredictable spending habits need only look at this week’s top-grossing film, Black Hawk Down, which pulled in more than $33 million last weekend, $10 million more than the feel-good flick Snow Dogs. While the country is embroiled in an ever-widening War on Terrorism, millions of Americans happily shelled out a ten-spot to watch two hours and 20 minutes of harrowingly realistic footage depicting US troops getting the shit shot out of them by Al Qaeda–trained militiamen in Somalia (possibly the next landing point for a new batch of Special Ops forces). Go figure.

In his heart of hearts, Alan Greenspan understands the dynamics of America’s current economic vertiginousness (his use of "as best I can judge," above, was no accident). And Osama bin Laden understands it, too (his war against the US, despite the spectacular violence of its inception, is at its core an economic campaign).

According to some analysts, consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of economic activity in the US. Given the unpredictability of the disposable dollar, then, attempting to augur what turn the US economy might take next is essentially futile. Greenspan might as well acknowledge this fact. The next time he stands before the Senate Budget Committee, he should give it to us straight: "How the hell do I know?"