Thoughts on Chairman Greenspan (int'l edition)

The way that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has fine-tuned the U.S. economy in recent years has been masterly (''The great bubble debate,'' Editorials, Sept. 13). The world breathed a collective sigh of relief back in autumn, 1998, when, in quick succession, he announced several cuts in interest rates, thereby averting a crash in the global economy.

In recent years the German Bundesbank has tended to use mini-moves of 10 [basis] points for keeping control of German monetary policy, but Greenspan has done his job more efficiently with words, using ''Greenspanese.'' This works because the world financial community is well aware that, in the final analysis, it's the Fed's hand on the monetary switch.

M.H. Laing
Geneva