Greenspan delivered a blunt warning Friday that foreign investors might get sick of subsidizing the nation's widening trade and budget deficits

In a sense, Greenspan said nothing new Friday. Richard Meese (pronounced Macy), a managing director at San Francisco's Barclays Global Investors, one of the world's largest money managers, said Greenspan and other Fed officials had been warning for months now that the nation -- as well as consumers -- was borrowing too much and saving too little.

"What he's saying is that the nation's balance sheet is out of whack, and the family balance sheet is out of whack,'' Meese said.

In his remarks Friday, Greenspan repeated the two-pronged prescription for fiscal health that Fed officials have long been preaching: reduce the federal deficit -- thus the need for borrowing -- and boost personal savings, so the United States would depend less on foreign investors for whatever borrowing must occur. 

Meese said it was unusual for Fed officials to make remarks that might affect the value of the dollar, which is traditionally the Treasury secretary's bailiwick.