[CaliGangsta]

Cramer: “HE HAS NO IDEA”.

Bernanke: “I HAVE NO IDEA” (14 months later).

[Tzimisce]

No problem. Just give the two TRILLION dollars back and we’ll call it “okay”. :D

[brytlea]

This doesn’t seem like rocket science. My husband and I have been talking about the potential problems with this stuff for several years.

[sanchmo]

He’s wrong on so many counts it’s frightening.

He was wrong to think the subprime problem could be contained. He’s wrong to believe (if it’s what he really believes) that the subprime problem was a cause for what we’re experienceing (as opposed to just a symptom of a more serious underlying condition). He’s wrong on what can be solved and how to solve it.

He’s one of the most expert students of what went wrong during the Great Depression, so he won’t make the same mistakes they did in the 20’s & 30’s. He wants to make his own creative mistakes.

[FredZarguna]

"The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict,"

Surely the best argument in favor of free markets ever delivered with completely clueless irony. No one is smart enough to unravel these relationships, which is why you do not implicitly or explicitly turn over hundreds of billions of dollars to a single man or to a government committee to "fix things."

[Batrachian]

When housing values started falling and foreclosures started piling up then the credit derivatives based on mortgages suddenly became either worthless, or at least worth far less then their paper value, with the values being impossible to determine. They are unsalable. That's the real problem, as far as the markets are concerned, and that's what Bernanke failed to predict.

For the record, I didn't predict it either. Sorry about that.

[ItsForTheChildren]

The article is called Anatomy of a Meltdown and the money quote is, "The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict"?

Thanks, Ben. What the hell do we pay you for? But then again, Greenspan didn't get it either.

And these were the "whiz kids". What, were they just guessin'?

[Shannon]

When a person make a “mistake” as huge as this, isn’t he supposed to resign?

[ScreamingFist]

"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."

Bernanke, the best and brightest Washington has to offer..../s

Perhaps he should....errrr.....read what real economists have said for the past 3 years or so...

[eclecticEel]

And still this man’s job is secure.

[Chuck N]

And oh by the way....my “mistake” helped Barrack Hussein Obama to get elected...what a coincidence...I became stupid to create a panic so a totally inexperienced Muslim Marxist could be elected president of the united states...so much for my higher education...I’m sorry....will you forgive me? I’m blushing from the shame...

[theJoker]

The password is “Jerkoff”

[coloradan]

In case you wanted to add something to your list of attributed quotations.

[VRWC For Truth]

Harvard University graduate ... I see a pattern. Havard = losers.

[ken21]

this is the guy who wrote his ph.d. thesis and specialized in the depression.

[FlingWingFlyer]

When all hell started breaking loose about this stuff, I saw a report, on FNC I think it was, about a woman in Michigan who had EIGHT (That’s more than John McCain) properties that she acquired using these sub prime mortgages. They never said what she was doing with them. However, they did say that, when things started to go downhill, she took off for her former home in Mississippi and let the properties go into foreclosure. I only saw the report one time but it sure was a quick lesson for me in what kinds of shenanigans were being pulled with all this sub prime crap.

[fightinJAG]

Oh, brother.

Conservatives said "Buy American." The UAW took conservatives' money and used it to buy the presidency. No, thanks. Buy American-made Hondas and Toyotas.

[VOA]

Bernanke: I Was Wrong About Subprime Crisis

I remember reading a profile on Bernanke and how he'd been fascinated
by The Great Depression even from his childhood.
He'd heard his grandmother in Charlotte, NC talk about how "nobody
had any money" during the 1930s.
After reading the profile, I foolishly thought "well, maybe this
is the sort of financial guy that will really be on guard against
financial malfeasance that might start The Second Great Depression."

Shows what I know about economists.

[PistolPaknMama]

Two people who were totally right about this whole thing for the past two years have been the most ridiculed people on FR: Ron Paul and Glenn Beck. Flame me too, it won’t change anything. We’ll have to cough up some XXX billion more dollars for my grandchildren and their children to pay off with hard labor. It won’t end until the entire financial/corporate market is under government control. And Lord knows how efficient and economical the feds are.

[Moonman62]

Paulson was the other parrot, repeating over and over that the crisis was contained, even though the market was clearly indicating otherwise at the time.