Alice M. Rivlin was Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve during its absolute apex. Nominated to that position in 1996, she stayed as number two to Alan Greenspan until 1999. During those years the central bank, and its central bankers, would become greatly admired for what was widely perceived as pure technocratic skill. The extended economic boom, with low inflation and unemployment, was believed by many due to their collective brilliance.

Ms. Rivlin is much less well-known than Mr. Greenspan, though that is not unusual Chairman to Vice Chairman (quick, who was Paul Volcker’s Vice Chairman?). She was not one for being filmed to be put up on CNBC’s or CNN’s awfully worshipful news segments. That role was all Greenspan, and one in which he clearly relished. Rivlin was more the insider, having worked in DC for decades by then.

She had been the original direction of the Congressional Budget Office, holding that position through Ford, Carter, and into the Reagan administration. She was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare way back in 1966. Rivlin was even awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1983 (the so-called genius grant).

In one of the very few speeches in her Fed record, Vice Chairman Rivlin in May 1999 wondered for a Minnesota audience if the good times would last. More importantly, she actually asked how they might.

Indeed, the economic journalists’ most frequent question these days is some variant of: “How long will it last?” “Is the good news temporary or permanent?” I get this question all the time, as do all members of the Federal Open Market Committee. Hope springs eternal that we may be privy to some secret economic clues available only to readers of entrails inside the temple. Unfortunately, of course, we process the same economic information available to everyone else and face the same uncertainties.

In very strict terms, that was true. The Fed’s data was no different than what is available publicly (though they might be given view to it before the public). Yet, that is not at all how the world was being interpreted back then. Rivlin was a little uncomfortable with the hero worship, suggesting throughout her speech that a great many other factors might be providing emphasis for what was to be called a few years later the Great “Moderation.”