Bernanke: I Was Wrong About Subprime Crisis

Newsmax.com ^ | 11/232008

[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.

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[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.

[staytrue]

First of all Cramer had no idea either.

When the first subprime guy went down in feb 07, he went prattling on for 5 months about subprime being contained and it was only going to be 200 billion.

2nd, what we are facing is not just subprime but the big 3 blowing up, china’s growth cooling, europe blowing up, hedge funds overspeculation, fraud at some banks, incompetence at other.

So Bernanke may have been right about subprime. He just did not see all the other blowups coming.

[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”

[Emmett McCarthy]

“Experts” always draw high salaries, wear nice suits, act smarmy and superior and then when it all blows up they just say, “How was I supposed to know?” And people fall for it over and over again. Like they say - the most important factor in the success of a “raindance” is timing.

[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.

[Travis McGee]

No doubt!

[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.