"euphoria": euphemism for "irrational exuberance"?

i just commented the other day - in part 2 of my 74-part series, "drunken sailors" that Fed chairman Alan Greenspan had let slip to a French minister the comment that the legislature and executive of the U.S. gov't had "lost control" of the deficit and that those comments sounded to me much like his "irrational exuberance" comments of December 1996, regarding the run-up of valuation in equities. now come the following comments, delivered yesterday:

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said asset prices often fall after long periods of stability and ``euphoria,'' echoing warnings he's issued over the past year that investors may be too complacent about risk.

``A decline in perceived risk is often self-reinforcing in that it encourages presumptions of prolonged stability,'' Greenspan told the National Association for Business Economics in Chicago today. ``Extended periods of low concern about credit risk have invariably been followed by reversal'' in asset prices.

While the Fed chairman didn't say which asset prices concern him, the speech came just one day after he said speculators may be driving up housing prices and creating a risk because so many Americans rely on home appreciation to support spending. Earlier this year he called the rally in bond prices a ``conundrum,'' given that the Fed is raising interest rates.

Greenspan is but a man and it must be pointed-out that his comments re: "irrational exuberance" were followed by another 4 years of significant increases in equities values. but it should also be considered that Greenspan's recent "slips" are certainly not slips at all, but carefully worded warnings - and that well-respected economic thinkers (and actors) such as former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and uber-investor Warren Buffet are saying quite similar things.