FLASH: Bernanke - "we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system"

FLASH: HousingPANIC says - "Wanna bet?!".

Either Bernanke is as incompetent and clueless as other Bush appointees, or he's just lying through his teeth to try to calm down the situation.

Either way, he's wrong. Why our leaders think Americans need everything sugar-coated I'll never understand. Just tell it how it is. We can handle it. Even if it sucks.

Fed: Mortgage Defaults Won't Hurt Economy

Fed Chief Says He Doesn't Believe Growing Number of Mortgage Defaults Will Seriously Harm Economy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that he did not believe the growing number of mortgage defaults would seriously harm the economy.

Facing criticism from members of Congress about lax regulation, Bernanke also promised that the Fed would do everything possible to crack down on abuses that have put millions of homeowners in jeopardy of defaulting on their mortgages.

"We at the Federal Reserve will do all that we can to prevent fraud and abusive lending and to ensure that lenders employ sound underwriting practices and make effective disclosures to consumers," Bernanke said in remarks prepared for a financial conference in Chicago.

However, Bernanke in his remarks did not detail any specific tightening of regulations, saying only that the Fed would hold hearings in coming weeks on the matter.

Bernanke said while it was likely that there would be further increases in mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures this year and in 2008, he did not believe this problem would be enough to derail the overall economy.

"We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will be limited and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system," Bernanke said in his remarks, copies of which were distributed in Washington.