Posted on 11/23/2008 3:32:59 PM PST by BuckeyeTexan
WASHINGTON Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledges he was wrong in believing that there would be limited fallout to financial markets from risky mortgages that soured after the housing market's collapse.
"I and others were mistaken early on in saying that the subprime crisis would be contained," Bernanke said in an article in the Dec. 1 issue of The New Yorker magazine.
"The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict," he said in the piece titled "Anatomy of a Meltdown."
Subprime mortgages made to people with tarnished credit or low incomes were especially hard hit once the housing boom went bust. Foreclosures spiked and financial companies wracked up huge losses as these investments turned bad.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
“Gee, I never realized that making loans to people who were unqualified would ever be a problem.”
Bernanke knew he was “wrong” at the time he made those statements - they were made for political purposes.
Or maybe he was so fascinated by it, he just had to have one for himself.
The GOP had all three houses from 2000-2006. They did nothing to address these issues. They just let Barney Frank and the minority Dems control the field. Don’t forget to lay blame at the Republican Party’s cowardly feet, too.
You’re right. I remember following threads where his views were slammed. There was one other freeper (I can’t recall his screen name) who used to post housing bubble threads long before the housing market tanked.
According to an IBD article the other day the current total of all bailouts authorized is $3.8 Trillion.
You got almost twice as much coming back as you thought.
sorry....couldn't help it.
:)
I polished off at least 3 bottles between Nov. 5th and Nov. 9th. It’s a good thing they can’t arrest one for driving under the influence of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I’d have lost my license.
And the incoming Obama administration is bringing in Geithner as Treasury Secretary... the guy heading the NY Fed Bank, who agreed with Paulson & Bernanke that subprime was not a systemic risk, who worked with Paulson & Bernanke on the various bailouts, who crafted the TARP-trap with Pualson & Bernanke and then decided to change it mid-stream, who argued in Sep-08 that we needed to spend $700B within days and then come mid-Nov hasn’t figured out how to spend 1/2 of it.
Beck claims (I don’t remember it personally) he was predicting “Dow 7500” when it was at 14000 and climbing.
Now (as of last Friday) he’s predicting “Dow 5000 or lower”.
Ex-Texan?
I remember being in college and clueless about politics and the ways of the world and listening to the radio announcement about how Clinton was going to give houses to minorities and poor people. Even I knew that it was a mistake. I told my future hubby we needed to save our pennies because in a few years we could buy up a really nice for cheap! (Wish I would have followed my own advice and that of my econ prof who told me the market would top out at 14000)
Well, as long as he admits he was wrong that makes it okay. /sarc
And we have unindicted co-conspirators and should-be criminals running the show. What a trainwreck, thanks loads fellas.
Buy a really nice House that is!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/magazine/17pessimist-t.html
So let me guess Ben, you are going to follow the steps of the most influential gawd D@mn liberal dimocrats, and state what liberal politicians have stated time and time again in the past: "We need to create another and bigger problem to stifle and fix the problems that we have created in the first place to fix a smaller problem".
This isn't a personal mistake by Bernanke, this is the dogma of big government liberals to cram the loss of personal freedom down our collective throats using our own hard earned labor to do it as usual.
William Wallace (Mel Gibson) we need you.
FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOMMMM
Mrs. Bernanke take care of your son for you are the only one who feels that way right now. ; )
Chopper Ben and Bazooka Hank lied shamelessly through this entire crisis in a futile attempt to bolster consumer confidence. A ponzi scheme fails only when people quit believing in it and Chopper and Bazooka couldn’t have that. Now the confidence is gone anyway, the ponzi scheme that you can live forever deep in debt at every level has collapsed, and now Chopper can come out and pretend he just didn’t know it was going to be this bad.
If a dumb civil engineer like me, with no specific financial education or training beyond Ag Econ, could liquidate my 401k of all mutual funds and move to all cash in December 2006 — if I could see this coming 2 years ago — then certainly Chopper and Bazooka had to know it was coming. They are just lying through their teeth while supporting their friends in high places until they can shovel them trainloads of money before the change in Administration.
No Chopper, you aren’t that stupid, just another sham confidence man screwing the little guy.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The REAL problem was "bankers bets" made on those loans. (Derivatives). We could bring every sub-prime loan up to date as a gift and it wouldn't make a dent in the real problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.