Ben Bernanke October 15 Speech to Economic Club of New York

In case you missed this, here is Ben Bernanke's speech last week to the Economic Club of New York. Importantly, Bernanke comes out and says what we have all known for some time, but have waited for speechmakers to be upfront about:

This financial crisis has been with us for more than a year. It was sparked by the end of the U.S. housing boom, which revealed the weaknesses and excesses that had occurred in subprime mortgage lending.

Of course, Bernanke goes on from there that the problems were much broader. Surprisingly, he takes on everything from the failures of Lehman and AIG to the on-going problems in the credit markets. This was the most detail and candor that I've seen come from Bernanke about where we are headed.


The speech is in two parts.

— JSM