"WASHINGTON -- For 10 months, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has kept his hands off the interest-rate lever.</br></br>When the recovery sputtered just before last November's election, Mr. Greenspan refused to cut short-term interest rates despite pleas from seven of the 12 regional Fed banks. When an inflation scare spooked the bond market earlier this year, Mr. Greenspan didn't raise rates -- although he probably would have had there been one more bad month of inflation news.</br></br>After listening to Mr. Greenspan's recent testimony before Congress, financial markets concluded that the chairman's fingers may be getting itchy. But the markets may not have been listening carefully.</br></br>Mr. Greenspan isn't nearly as hard to understand as some people say. Yes, his sentences are convoluted. Take this one: ""Patently, the overall economic effect of fiscal policy, especially when combined with the uncertainties of the forthcoming health-reform package, has imparted a number of unconventional unknowns to the economic outlook.""</br></br>But his current message is clear: The short-term interest rates that the Fed controls, adjusted for inflation, are near zero. In a growing economy, that is too low. The Fed is going to raise short-term interest rates one of these days. He didn't say when. He probably doesn't know when. The Fed will move sooner if inflation raises its ugly head. It will move later if inflation behaves."