Ben Bernanke Quotes
The decline in home equity makes it more difficult for struggling homeowners to refinance and reduces the financial incentive of stressed borrowers to remain in their homes.
Bernanke, Ben S. "Housing, Mortgage Markets, and Foreclosures." Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 5 May 2008.
This quotation has more than historical interest. The housing fraud technique of 1906 that Sinclair uncovered in his expose were essentially very similar to those that were used in the beginning of the 21st century on a much larger scale that contributed to the Meltdown of 2008, the Great Recession, and the weak housing industry for the next decade. The major difference is that by 2008, the banks and finance industry had developed ways to also get money from the taxpayer for the housing frauds. The expectation that the home buyer would not be able to keep making the mortgage payments was the key in both centuries.
Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist at the Brookings Institution who served two terms as the 14th Chair of the Federal Reserve, from 2006 to 2014. During his tenure as chair, Bernanke oversaw the Federal Reserve's response to the late-2000s financial crisis, for which he was named the 2009 Time Person of the Year. Before becoming Federal Reserve chair, Bernanke was a tenured professor at Princeton University and chaired the department of economics there from 1996 to September 2002, when he went on public service leave.
