Bernanke and the Fed come clean - there was a housing bubble, there is a housing crash, they f*cked up regulating mortgages, and it's gonna get worse

Well, I'm glad they got step that out of the way. Only took 'em a few years. The Big Lie is over (for most). So let's move on.

Maybe Norman, Swann, Todd, Retsinas, Lereah, Yun, Atkins, Paulson, Bush, Appleton-Young and the millions of other housing cheerleaders, liars, con-men and swindlers will come clean too.

Hey, one can hope...

Here's Ben "There is no housing bubble" Bernanke yesterday in front of Congress:

Many of the challenges now facing our economy stem from the continuing contraction of the U.S. housing market.

In 2006, after a multiyear boom in residential construction and house prices, the housing market reversed course. Housing starts and sales of new homes are now less than half of their respective peaks, and house prices have flattened or declined in most areas.

Changes in the availability of mortgage credit amplified the swings in the housing market. During the housing sector''s expansion phase, increasingly lax lending standards, particularly in the subprime market, raised the effective demand for housing, pushing up prices and stimulating construction activity.

As the housing market began to turn down, however, the slump in subprime mortgage originations, together with a more general tightening of credit conditions, has served to increase the severity of the downturn. Weaker house prices in turn have contributed to the deterioration in the performance of mortgage-related securities and reduced the availability of mortgage credit.

The housing market is expected to continue to weigh on economic activity in coming quarters. Homebuilders, still faced with abnormally high inventories of unsold homes, are likely to cut the pace of their building activity further, which will subtract from overall growth and reduce employment in residential construction and closely related industries.