Bernanke Is Either A Complete Idiot OR An Unambiguous Liar...

In some respects, I would say that both descriptions apply.  With regard to his speech yesterday - which has attracted quite a bit of attention as well as raised a lot of eyebrows - I would assert that Bernanke has taken the "politically pragmatic" tact, which would otherwise be known as "lying one's ass off and passing the buck."

Bernanke asserts that the low interest rates were not responsible for fueling the housing bubble and that regulation was "too late" to stop the whole process.  This is utter and complete nonsense. Quite frankly, in many years of watching and evaluating statements made by policy-making officials, I have never seen a statement as absurd and lacking credibility as ones made by Bernanke yesterday.  I find it hard to believe that Bernanke actually believes this garbage explanation - and if he does then his role as Fed Chairman should be terminated immediately, because his academic, intellectual and professional credibility would be called into question. 

With respect to interest rates, it was both the low interst rate policy implemented by Greenspan, and extended down to zero by Bernanke, that directly contributed to the blowing up of housing prices by allowing buyers to pay substantially higher prices which were justified by lower monthly payments derived from lower interest rates.  Even more significant was the continued flooding of money into the system, directly by the Fed ramping up the money supply and, indirectly, by the Fed relaxing capital standards, which allowed banks lend a lot more money against their balance sheet and assume more risk in the form of bigger mortgages and much higher mortgage debt/equity ratios.  Moreover, the capital flood provided by the Fed allowed the monstrous expansion of the securitzation machine operated by Wall Street, which fueled the ability of both the GSE's and private banking sources, like Countrywide, Washington Mutual and Lehman (Aurora Loan Services), among many others, to raise hundreds of billions in very risky capital and in the form of deadly off-balance-sheet derivatives.  The Fed, led by Bernanke, knew all of this was occurring and yet did nothing to curtail the deadly systemic mortgage finance machine.

As for Bernanke's statement that regulation came too late to stop the bubble, that comment is as patently absurd as his statement about interest rates.  Why?  Because the regulatory checks and balances were already in place.  It was the lack of enforcement of these regulations that allowed the massive ratings fraud perpetrated by the rating agencies, enabled the complete deterioration of mortgage underwriting standards that fueld the Alt-A/subprime boom and permitted the catastrophic amount of leverage which was assumed by all financial intermediaries.  Contrary to Bernanke's statement, it was his own lack of enforcement of many of the regulatory functions which fall under Fed oversight, among other Federal agencies, which allowed lending fraud at all levels to fuel home prices to such economically and financially presposterous levels.

I thus would request that the real Ben Bernanke please step forward.  Are you the political animal who made a disingenous attempt to evade your role in the ongoing collapse of our economic system, or are you the imbecile who gave a speech with statements so ludicrous that they insulted the intelligence of anyone who bothered to pay attention to what you said?  Our system absolutely does not need a lot more regulations piled on top of the ones already in place.  It does need leaders and policy-makers who are willing to do the right thing and honestly and rigidly enforce the existing regulations.  I believe it's too late for this...et tu Ben?