"High rates of delinquency and foreclosure can have substantial spillover effects on the housing market, the financial markets, and the broader economy," Bernanke said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Columbia University School of Business in New York.
Naturally none of this prevents him from a strict whatever-Wall-Street-wants policy of cushy bailouts and rate cuts. What next? Is Bernanke going to boldly state that interest rate cuts to banks don't transfer to individuals or that when the dollar goes down, gas prices go up with each rate cut?
Where the heck were Bernanke and Greenspan, the Fed, and the Republicans when this fragile system was being built up? They're all supposed to be so smart, so how did they honestly think that real estate would always increase? Have they never studied bubble economies before? How did we get stuck with such an incompetent bunch?