Alan Greenspan couldn't control long-term interest rates adecade ago, and bond investors are betting Janet Yellen's luck willbe no better.

When then-Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan raised thebenchmark overnight rate from 2004 to 2006, long-term borrowingcosts failed to increase, thwarting his attempts to tighten creditand curb excesses that contributed to the worst financial crisis in80 years.

“We wanted to control the federal funds rate but ran intotrouble because long-term rates did not, as they always hadpreviously, respond to the rise in short-term rates,” Greenspansaid in an interview last week. He called this a “conundrum” duringcongressional testimony in 2005.